Carnegie Mellon University
Towards Safe and Robust Behavior Mixing for Multi-Robot Systems
Abstract: Multi-robot systems have been widely studied for extending its capability of accomplishing complex tasks through cooperative behaviors. In large-scale multi-robot behavior mixing, the heterogeneous robotic team executes simultaneously multiple behaviors or sequences of behaviors with various task-prescribed controllers in real time to increase efficiency in parallel tasks. Key to the success of behavior mixing [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Design and Evaluation of Robust Control Methods for Robotic Transfemoral Prostheses
Abstract: Amputees face a number of gait deficits due to a lack of control and power from their mechanically-passive prostheses. Of crucial importance among these deficits are those related to balance, as falls and a fear of falling can cause an avoidance of activity that leads to further debilitation. In this thesis, we investigate the [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Vigneshram Krishnamoorthy – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: A Computational Framework for Norm-Aware Reasoning in Autonomous Systems Abstract: Autonomous agents are increasingly deployed in complex social environments where they not only have to reason about their domain goals but also about norms that can impose constraints on task performance. Integrating task planning with norm aware reasoning is a challenging problem due to [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Deep Reinforcement Learning Representations for Robotics
Abstract: A long standing goal of robotics research is to create algorithms that can automatically learn complex control strategies from scratch. Part of the challenge of applying such algorithms to robots is the choice of representation. While RL algorithms have been successfully applied to many robotics tasks such as Ball-in-a-Cup and various RoboCup soccer domains, [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Speeding Up Search-based Motion Planning Via Conservative Heuristics
Abstract: Weighted A* search (wA*) is a popular tool for robot motion-planning. Its efficiency however depends on the quality of heuristic function used. In fact, it has been shown that the correlation between the heuristic function and the true cost-to-goal significantly affects the efficiency of the search, when used with a large weight on the [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Learning multi-robot behaviors for online control
Abstract: Finding dynamically feasible and safe global plans for multi-agent teams in real world applications is enormously difficult because the decision branching factor, when considering all possible interactions across agents and an environment, is usually intractable. Humans, however, have great success in the multi-agent planning domain by using behaviors: practiced, coordinated responses for groups of [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Routing for Persistent Exploration in Dynamic Environments with Teams of Energy-Constrained Robots
Abstract: In domains requiring effective situational awareness with limited resources, prioritizing focus is critical. Search and rescue tasks require fast identification of safe avenues for rescuers to traverse the area. Inspection tasks must realize trends over long durations to identify issues caused by the confluence of high-stress modes that compound into catastrophic failure. Deploying robots [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Intra-Robot Replanning and Learning for Multi-Robot Teams in Complex Dynamic Domains
Abstract: In complex dynamic multi-robot domains, there is a set of individual robots that must coordinate together through a centralized planner that inevitably makes assumptions based on a model of the environment and the actions of the individual. Eventually, the individuals may encounter failures, because the centralized planner’s models of the states and actions are [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Toward a New Type of Agile and Dexterous Mobile Manipulator
Abstract: Mobile robot bases have been developed over many decades, but only recently have researchers added arms to these bases, opening up the rich field of mobile manipulation. Most of these robots either need wide, heavy, statically-stable bases that may or may not be omnidirectional to support the arms and provide stability. Such robot bases, [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Light Sheet Depth Imaging
Abstract: Once confined to industrial manufacturing facilities and research labs, robots are increasingly entering everyday life. As specialized robots are developed for tasks such as autonomous driving, package delivery, and aerial videography, there is a growing need for affordable depth sensing technology. Robots use sensors like scanning LIDAR, depth cameras, and passive stereo cameras to [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Towards Generalization and Efficiency in Reinforcement Learning
Abstract: In classic supervised machine learning, a learning agent behaves as a passive observer: it receives examples from some external environment which it has no control over and then makes predictions. Reinforcement Learning (RL), on the other hand, is fundamentally interactive: an autonomous agent must learn how to behave in an unknown and possibly hostile [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Akshat Agarwal – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Learning Transferable Cooperative Behavior in Multi-Agent Teams Abstract: We study the emergence of cooperative behavior and communication protocols in multi-agent teams, for collaboratively accomplishing tasks like coverage control and formation control for swarms. Using graph neural networks to model inter-agent communications, we present state-of-the-art results in a fully decentralized execution framework which assumes [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Yifan Ding – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Decentralized Multiple Mobile Depots Route Planning for Replenishing Persistent Surveillance Robots Abstract: Persistent surveillance of a target space using multiple robots has numerous applications. The continuous operation in these applications is challenged by the limited onboard battery capacity of the persistent robots. We consider the problem for replenishing persistent robots using mobile depots, [...]
Active Learning in Robot Motion Control
Abstract: Motion motivated by information needs can be found throughout natural systems, yet there is comparatively little work in robotics on analyzing and synthesizing motion for information. Instead, engineering analysis of robots and animal motion typically depends on defining objectives and rewards in terms of states and errors on states. This is how we formulate [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Tanya Marwah – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Generating 3D Human Animations from Single Monocular Images Abstract: Endowing AI systems with the ability to formulate a three-dimensional understanding of human appearance from a single RGB image is an important component technology for applications such as person re-identification, biometrics, virtual reality and augmented reality. However, jointly inferring the texture map and 3D [...]
Human-guided Task Transfer for Interactive Robots
Abstract: Adaptability is an essential skill in human cognition, enabling us to draw from our extensive, life-long experiences with various objects and tasks in order to address novel problems. To date, most robots do not have this kind of adaptability, and yet, as our expectations of robots’ interactive and assistive capacity grows, it will be [...]
Pragna Mannam – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Model-free Sensorless Manipulation Abstract: This thesis is a study of 2D manipulation without sensing and planning, by exploring the effects of unplanned randomized action sequences on 2D object pose uncertainty. Our approach uses sensorless reorienting of an object to achieve a determined pose, regardless of the initial pose. Without using sensors and models [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Gines Hidalgo Martinez – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: OpenPose: Whole-Body Pose Estimation Abstract: We present the first single-network approach for 2D whole-body (body, face, hand, and foot) pose estimation, capable of detecting an arbitrary number of people from in-the-wild images. Our method maintains constant real-time performance regardless of the number of people in the image. This network is trained in a [...]
RI Faculty Social
All Robotics Institute faculty are invited to attend this informal team-building business/social event. Beverages and snacks will be provided.
Donglai Xiang – MSR Thesis Talk
Title: Monocular Total Capture: Pose Face, Body, and Hands in the Wild Abstract: We present the first method to capture the 3D total motion of a target person from a monocular view input. Given an image or a monocular video, our method reconstructs the motion from body, face, and fingers represented by a 3D deformable [...]