Student Talks
Carnegie Mellon University
Robust and Scalable Perception For Autonomy
Abstract: Autonomous mobile robots have the potential to drastically improve the quality of our daily life. For example, self-driving vehicles could make transportation safer and more affordable. To navigate complex environments, such robots need a perception system that translates raw sensory data to high-level understanding. This thesis focuses on two fundamental challenges in learning such [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk: Yiming Zuo
Title: Towards Self-supervised Object Discovery and Tracking Abstract: Object discovery and multiple object tracking (MOT) are two highly interrelated tasks that are known to be fundamental problems in computer vision, and are crucial for video understanding. Most existing methods rely on supervised training with human annotations, which is laborious and expensive. In this thesis, [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk: Qiao Gu
Title: Towards Object-generic 6D Pose Estimation Abstract: Pose estimation is a basic module in many robot manipulation pipelines. Estimating the pose of objects in the environment can be useful for grasping, motion planning, or manipulation. However, current state-of-the-art methods for pose estimation either rely on large annotated training sets or simulated data. Further, the long [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk: Divam Gupta
Title: End-to-End Deep Stereo Layout Estimation Abstract: Accurate layout estimation is crucial for planning and navigation in robotics applications, such as self-driving. In this paper, we introduce the Stereo Bird's Eye ViewNetwork (SBEVNet), a novel supervised end-to-end framework for estimation of bird's eye view layout from a pair of stereo images. Although our network [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Michael Tasota – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Design of a Multimodal System for Social Emotional Learning in Early Childhood Classrooms Abstract: As the prevalence of mobile and touch-based devices continues to expand in society, so too does its impact on young children. With educational technologies also on the rise, young children benefit most from those technologies that are designed to [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk: Aaron Huang
Title: End-to-End Methods for Autonomous Driving in Simulation Abstract: Fully autonomous driving is considered one of the grand challenges of modern technology and a variety of approaches have emerged for creating and evaluating autonomous driving agents. The self-driving industry typically adopts a modular software architecture and uses large fleets of autonomous vehicles for data [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Retrieval-based Novel Activity Detection in Untrimmed Videos Abstract: Accurately detecting activities in untrimmed videos is a challenging task as systems need to handle variance in object scales, multiple viewpoints, and multiple types of activities. Furthermore, in a real-world scenario, activity detectors are often required to detect novel kinds of activities when the need [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Semantic Mapping for Autonomous Navigation and Exploration
Abstract: The last two decades have seen enormous progress in the sensors and algorithms for 3D perception, giving robots the means to build accurate spatial maps and localize themselves in them in real time. The geometric information in these maps is invaluable for navigation while avoiding obstacles, but insufficient, by itself, for robots to robustly [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk: Howard Coffin
Title: Mutual Information Maps for Single and Multi-Target Ergodic Search Abstract: This thesis addresses use of multi-agent systems to perform autonomous search for moving targets. Target search has many applications, including search and rescue and surveillance, but most robotic systems used in these situations require human operators. Recent works have used ergodic search methods to [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
MSR Thesis Talk: Wanwen Chen
Title: Ultrasound-based Needle Tracking and Lateral Manipulation Planning for Common Needle Steering Abstract: Many medical interventions require inserting a needle towards the desired site. Robotic needle insertion can potentially provide reliable needle access independent of practitioner experience and availability. However, when the needle is inserted into heterogeneous tissue, the complicated needle-tissue interaction introduces multiple challenges [...]