PhD Thesis Defense
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Navigation and Physical Interaction with Balancing Robots
Event Location: NSH 1507Abstract: This work describes methods for advancing the state of the art in mobile robot navigation and physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI). An enabling technology in this effort is the ballbot, a person-sized mobile robot that balances on a ball. This underactuated robot presents unique challenges in planning, navigation, and control; however, it [...]
Calibration and Characterization of Low-Cost Fine Particulate Monitors and their Effect on Individual Empowerment
Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Air quality has long been a major health concern for citizens around the world, and increased levels of exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been definitively linked to serious health effects such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and increased mortality. PM2.5 is one of six attainment criteria pollutants used by [...]
Improving Prosody through Analysis by Synthesis
Event Location: GHC 6501Abstract: An iterative model-based method is proposed for improving linguistic structure, segmentation, and prosodic annotations that correspond to the delivery of each utterance as regularized across the data. For each iteration, the training utterances are resynthized according to the existing symbolic annotation. Values of various features and subgraph structures are "twiddled:" each [...]
Automatic Analysis of Facial Actions: Learning from Transductive, Supervised and Unsupervised Frameworks
Abstract Automatic analysis of facial actions (AFA) can reveal a person's emotion, intention, and physical state, and make possible a wide range of applications. To enable reliable, valid, and efficient AFA, this thesis investigates both supervised and unsupervised learning. Supervised learning for AFA is challenging, in part, because of individual differences among persons in face [...]
Measuring Human Motion in Social Interactions
Tomas Simon Carnegie Mellon University Abstract This thesis develops methods for social signal reconstruction---in particular, we measure human motion during social interactions. Compared to other work in this space, we aim to measure the entire body, from the overall body pose to subtle hand gestures and facial expressions. The key to achieving this without placing [...]
Online Lidar and Vision based Ego-motion Estimation and Mapping
Ji Zhang Carnegie Mellon University Abstract In many real-world applications, ego-motion estimation and mapping must be conducted online. In the robotics world, especially, real-time motion estimates are important for control of autonomous vehicles, while online generated maps are crucial for obstacle avoidance and path planning. Further, the complete map of a traversed environment can be [...]
Creative Robotic Systems for Talent-based Learning
Event Location: GHC 4405Abstract: In recent years, the U.S. educational system has fallen short in training the technology innovators of the future. To do so, we must give students the experience of designing and creating technological artifacts, rather than relegating students to the role of technology consumers, and must provide educators with opportunities and professional [...]
The theory, implementation, and evaluation of spring mass running on ATRIAS, a bipedal robot
Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: We expect legged robots to be highly mobile. Human walking and running can execute quick changes in speed and direction, even on non-flat ground. Indeed, analysis of simplified models shows that these quantities can be tightly controlled by adjusting the leg placement between steps, and that leg placement can also compensate [...]
Improving Prediction of Traversability for Planetary Rovers Using Thermal Imaging
Event Location: GHC 4405Abstract: The most significant mobility challenges that planetary rovers encounter are compounded by loose, granular materials that cause slippage and sinkage on slopes or are deep enough to entrap a vehicle. The inability of current technology to detect loose terrain hazards has caused significant delays for rovers on both the Moon and [...]
Safe, Efficient, and Robust Predictive Control of Constrained Nonlinear Systems
Vishnu R. Desaraju Carnegie Mellon University April 12, 2017, 2:00 p.m., NSH 1305 Abstract As autonomous systems are deployed in increasingly complex and uncertain environments, safe, accurate, and robust feedback control techniques are required to ensure reliable operation. Accurate trajectory tracking is essential to complete a variety of tasks, but this may be difficult if [...]