Student Talks
Generalized Density-Estimate Memory for Dynamic Problems
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Optimization systems traditionally focus on static problems, also known as offline or a priori optimization problems. Many real-world problems may be better modeled as dynamic optimization problems, also known as stochastic, in situ, or online optimization problems. In these types of problems, the fitness landscape of the search space [...]
Learning Preference Models for Complex Mobile Robotic Systems
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Achieving robust and reliable operation even in complex unstructured environments is a central goal of field robotics. As the environments and scenarios to which robots are applied have continued to grow in complexity, so has the challenge of properly defining preferences between various actions, and the terrains they result [...]
A Minimalist Dynamic Climbing Robot: Modeling, Analysis and Experiments
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Dynamics in locomotion is highly useful, as can be seen in animals and gradually in robots. For instance, chimpanzees are dynamic climbers that can reach virtually any part of a tree and even move to neighboring trees, while sloths are quasistatic climbers confined only to a few branches. Although [...]
Understanding and Recreating Visual Appearance under Natural Illumination
Event Location: Smith Hall 100Abstract: The appearance of an outdoor scene is determined to a great extent by the prevailing illumination conditions. However, most practical computer vision applications treat illumination more as a nuisance rather than a source of signal. In this thesis proposal, we suggest that we should instead embrace illumination, even in the [...]
Spectral Graph Matching, Learning, and Inference for Computer Vision
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Several important applications in computer vision, such as 2D and 3D object matching, object category and action recognition, object category discovery, and texture discovery and analysis, require the ability to match features efficiently in the presence of background clutter and occlusion. In order to improve matching robustness and accuracy [...]
Adaptive Model-Predictive Motion Planning for Navigation in Complex Environments
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Outdoor mobile robot motion planning and navigation is a challenging problem in artificial intelligence. The search space density and dimensionality, system dynamics and environmental interaction complexity, and the perceptual horizon limitation all contribute to the difficultly of this problem. It is hard to generate a motion plan between arbitrary [...]
Modeling Illumination for Scene Recovery through the Motion, Occlusion and Strobing of Light-Sources
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Recent display applications for entertainment and business have made available new types of illumination using LEDs, DMDs and LCDs, which are bright, energy efficient and cheap. Some of these devices are programmable and allow spatio-temporal control of the emitted light rays. With the advent of such digital light-sources, illumination [...]
Multi-robot Coordination in Domains with Intra-path Constraints
Event Location: Newell Simon Hall 1305Abstract: Many applications require teams of robots to cooperatively execute tasks. Among these domains are those in which successful coordination must respect intra-path constraints, which are constraints that occur on the paths of agents and affect route planning. One such domain is disaster response with intra-path constraints, a compelling application [...]
