PhD Thesis Proposal

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: Human conversations are a type of jointly focused encounter in which the participants gather together and openly cooperate to sustain a single focus of attention. When the participants are standing, their cooperation can be observed in their spatial organization. People position and orient themselves to maximize their opportunity to monitor one [...]

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

Event Location: GHC 4405Abstract: Active illumination systems use a controllable light source and a light sensor to measure properties of a scene. For such a system to work reliably it must be able to handle the effects of global light transport, bright ambient light, defocus and scene motion. The goal of this thesis is to [...]

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: Robots have become increasingly adept at performing a wide variety of tasks in the world. However, many of these tasks can benefit tremendously from having more than a single robot simultaneously working on the problem. Multiple robots can aid in a search and rescue mission each scouting a subsection of the [...]

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: 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 the leg placement can also [...]

Event Location: NSH 3305Abstract: Mobile autonomous service robots perform services requested by users at specific times. The goal of this thesis is to explore how a service robot can make use of the spare time between user requests. We propose the robot performs self-scheduled services for which it receives reward from the users. Our proposed [...]

Event Location: GHC 8102Abstract: One of the most fundamental tasks for any robotics application is the ability to adequately assimilate and respond to incoming sensor data. The goal of this thesis is to explore how statistical models for point cloud data can facilitate, accelerate, and unify many common tasks in the area of 3D perception. [...]

Event Location: GHC 4405Abstract: Future in-situ resource utilization promises to enable affordable exploration of space and extend human presence in the Solar System by minimizing the materials that must be carried from Earth. This is predicated on the existence of economic quantities of native materials that can be converted into consumable resources, such as water, [...]

Event Location: NSH 1507Abstract: Facial actions speak louder than words. Facial actions can reveal a person's emotion, intention, and physical state; and make possible a range of applications that include market research, human-robot interaction, drowsiness detection, and clinical and developmental psychology research. In this proposal, we investigate both supervised and unsupervised approaches to facial action [...]

Event Location: GHC 2109Abstract: The last decade has seen remarkable advances in 3D perception for robotics. Advances in range sensing and SLAM now allow robots to easily acquire detailed 3D maps of their environment in real-time. However, adaptive robot behavior requires an understanding the environment that goes beyond pure geometry. A step above purely geometric [...]