PhD Thesis Proposal
Varun Ramakrishna
Carnegie Mellon University

Pose Inference Machines: Efficient and Accurate Human Pose Estimation from Images

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Fast and accurate human pose estimation enables a wide spectrum of applications from interactive control, markerless motion capture and gesture recognition to providing rich semantic information for higher level vision tasks such as scene understanding. The goal of this work is to develop an accurate and real-time human pose estimation system [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
Sungwook Yang
Carnegie Mellon University

Handheld Micromanipulator for Robot-Assisted Microsurgery

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: Robot-assisted surgery has been increasingly adopted in a wide variety of surgical applications because it offers fine manipulation with high precision and dexterity. Despite the commercial success of robotic platforms, practical use in microsurgery is still challenging due to a considerable level of accuracy required at sub-millimeter scales. Limited visualization and [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Laura Trutoiu
Carnegie Mellon University

Perceptually Valid Dynamics for Smiles and Blinks

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Human observers are adept at detecting anomalies in realistic computer-generated (CG) facial animations. With an increased demand for CG characters in education and entertainment applications, it is important to animate accurate, realistic facial expressions. In this thesis, we develop a framework to explore representations of two key facial expressions: blinks and [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Lindsey Hines
Carnegie Mellon University

Design and Control of a Flapping Flight Micro Aerial Vehicle

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: 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 [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Feng Zhou
Carnegie Mellon University

Spatial, Temporal and Spatio-temporal Correspondence for Computer Vision Problems

Event Location: GHC 2109Abstract: Many computer vision problems, such as object classification, motion estimation or shape registration rely on solving the correspondence problem. Existing algorithms to solve spatial or temporal correspondence problems are usually NP-hard, difficult to approximate, lack flexible models and mechanism for feature weighting. This proposal addresses the correspondence problem in computer vision, [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
X Xinjilefu
Carnegie Mellon University

State Estimation for Humanoid Robots

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: This proposal focuses on dynamic model based state estimation for hydraulic humanoid robots. The goal is to produce state estimates that are robust and achieve good performance when combined with the controller. Three issues are addressed in this proposal. 1. How to handle modelling error using state estimation? 2. How to [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Neal A. Seegmiller
Carnegie Mellon University

Dynamic Model Formulation and Calibration for Wheeled Mobile Robots

Event Location: NSH 1507Abstract: Advances in hardware design have made wheeled mobile robot(WMRs) exceptionally mobile. To fully exploit this mobility, WMR planning, control,and estimation systems require motion models that are fast and accurate. Much of the published theory on WMR modeling is limited to 2D or kinematics, but 3D dynamic (or force-driven) models are required [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
Prateek Tandon
Carnegie Mellon University

Bayesian Aggregation of Evidence for Detection and Characterization of Patterns in Multiple Noisy Observations

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: Effective use of Machine Learning to support extracting maximal information from limited sensor data is one of the important research challenges in robotic sensing. This thesis develops techniques for detecting and characterizing patterns in noisy sensor data. Our Bayesian Aggregation (BA) algorithmic framework can leverage data fusion from multiple low Signal-To-Noise [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
David Ford Fouhey
Carnegie Mellon University

Factoring Scenes into 3D Structure an Style

Event Location: GHC 4405Abstract: Given a single image of a scene, humans have few issues answering questions about the 3D structure like “is this facing upwards?” even though mathematically speaking this should be impossible. We have similarly have few issues accounting for this 3D structure in answering viewpoint independent questions like “is this the same [...]