PhD Thesis Defense

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Nonrigid deformation modeling and estimation from images is a technically challenging task due to its nonlinear, nonconvex and high-dimensional nature. Traditional optimization procedures often rely on good initializations and give locally optimal solutions. On the other hand, learning-based methods that directly model the relationship between deformed images and their parameters either [...]

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: Walking is a core task for humanoid robots. Most existing walking controllers fall into one of two categories. One category plans ahead and walks precisely; they can place the feet in desired locations to avoid obstacles but react poorly to unexpected disturbances. The other category is more reactive; they can respond [...]

Event Location: NSH 1305Abstract: Across many rescue, surveillance, and scientific applications, there exists a broad need to perform wide-area reconnaissance and terrain surveys, for which unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly popular. This thesis considers the task of using one or more UAVs to locate an object of interest, provide continuous viewing, and rapidly re-acquire [...]

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: The modular snake robots in Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics 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 commonly used in robotics prove [...]

Event Location: GHC 2109Abstract: In Pickup and Delivery Problems (PDPs), mobile vehicles retrieve and deliver a set of items. The PDP is a well-studied, NP-hard problem. Examples of the PDP include mail and courier services, taxis, ridesharing services, and robots such as our own CoBots and CreBots, which retrieve and deliver items for the occupants [...]

Event Location: NSH 1305Abstract: When looking at a single 2D image of a scene, humans could effortlessly understand the 3D world behind the scene even though stereo and motion cues are not available. Due to this remarkable human capability, one of the ultimate goals of computer vision is to enable machines to automatically infer the [...]

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: The task assignment problem is one of the fundamental combinatorial optimization problems. It has been extensively studied in operation research, management science, computer science and robotics. In multi-robot systems (MRS), there are various applications of task assignment, such as environmental monitoring, disaster response, extraterrestrial exploration, sensing data collection and collaborative autonomous [...]

Event Location: NSH 1305Abstract: Snake robots are ideally suited to highly confined environments because their small cross-sections and highly redundant kinematics allow them to enter and move through tight spaces with a high degree of dexterity. Despite these theoretical advantages, snake robots also pose a number of practical challenges that have limited their usefulness in [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]