Student Talks
Representation, Planning, and Learning of Dynamic Ad Hoc Robot Teams
Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Task allocation involves the division of tasks among a team of robots, such that each robot is responsible for a subset of the tasks. Similarly, in role assignment, roles are typically defined to be performed by a single robot whose performance is independent of the composition of its team. Complex tasks, [...]
Improving Robot Locomotion and Situational Awareness through Learning Methods for Expensive Black-Box Systems
Event Location: GHC 6501Abstract: The modular snake robots in Howie Choset’s lab provide an intriguing platform for research: they have already been shown to excel at a variety of locomotive tasks and have incredible potential for navigating complex terrains, but much of that potential remains untapped. Unfortunately, many techniques that are commonly used in robotics [...]
Segment-based SVMs for Time Series Analysis
Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: Enabling computers to understand human and animal behavior has the potential to revolutionize many areas that benefit society such as clinical diagnosis, human-computer interaction, and social robotics. Critical to the understanding of human and animal behavior, and any temporally-varying phenomenon in general, is the capability to segment, classify, and cluster time [...]
No-Regret Methods for Learning Sequential Predictions
Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Sequential prediction problems arise commonly in many areas of robotics and information processing. For instance, in robot navigation tasks, autonomous robots rely on the ability to make a sequence of actions, given a sequence of observations revealed to them over time, in order to reach the desired goal location. Similarly, complex [...]
Cellular Event Detection in Time-lapse Live Cell Microscopy Images
Event Location: NSH 3002Abstract: Computer vision analysis of live cells in time-lapse microscopy images enables long-term continuous monitoring of a large number of intact cells with minimal human intervention, which has not been feasible by existing image processing methods with cellular staining images. Of critical importance in time-lapse microscopy image analysis is to understand the [...]
Differentially Constrained Motion Planning with State Lattice Motion Primitives
Event Location: GHC 4405Abstract: Robot motion planning with differential constraints has received a great deal of attention in the last few decades, yet it still remains a challenging problem. Among a number of reasons, three stand out. First, the differential constraints that most physical robots exhibit render the coupling between the control and state spaces [...]
Design and Control of a Flapping Flight Micro Aerial Vehicle
Event Location: NSH 3002Abstract: Miniature flapping flight systems hold great promise in matching the agility of their natural counterparts, bees, flies, and hummingbirds. Characterized by reciprocating wing motion, unsteady aerodynamics, and the ability to hover, insect-like flapping flight presents an interesting locomotion strategy capable of functioning at small size scales and is still a current [...]
Vision-Based Navigation for a Small Fixed-Wing Airplane in Urban Environment
Event Location: NSH 1507Abstract: An urban operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) demands a high level of autonomy for tasks presented in a cluttered environment. While fixed-wing UAVs are well suited for long-endurance missions at a high altitude, enabling them to navigate inside an urban area brings another level of challenges. Their inability to hover [...]
Augmenting Cartographic Resources and Assessing Roadway State for Vehicle Navigation
Event Location: NSH 1507Abstract: Maps are important for both human and robot navigation. Given a route, driving assistance systems consult maps to guide human drivers to their destinations. Similarly, topological maps of a road network provide a robotic vehicle with information about where it can drive and what driving behaviors it should use. Maps simplify [...]
Lumenhancement: Exploiting Appearance for Planetary Modeling
Event Location: NSH 1109Abstract: Planetary environments are among the most hazardous, remote and uncharted in the solar system. They are also critical to the search for life, human exploration, resource extraction, infrastructure and science. These applications represent the prime unexploited opportunity for automated modeling, but robots are under-utilized for this purpose. There is urgent need [...]