MSR Thesis Defense
MSR Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

[MSR Thesis Talk] Development and Testing of a Software Stack for an Autonomous Racing Vehicle

3305 Newell-Simon Hall

Abstract: Autonomous racing aims to replicate the human racecar driver with software and sensors. As in traditional motorsports, Autonomous Racing Vehicles (ARVs) are pushed to their dynamic limits in multi-agent scenarios at high (>= 100mph) speeds. This Operational Design Domain (ODD) presents unique challenges across the autonomy stack. The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) is an [...]

MSR Thesis Defense
MSR Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

[MSR Thesis Talk] Kitchen Robot Case Studies: Learning Manipulation Tasks from Human Video Demonstrations

GHC 8102

Abstract:  The vision of integrating a robot into the kitchen, capable of acting as a chef, remains a sought-after goal in robotics. Current robotic systems, mostly programmed for specific tasks, fall short in versatility and adaptability to a diverse culinary environment. While significant progress has been made in robotic learning, with advancements in behavior cloning, [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Towards Agile Robotics: Creating Push-Off Skills for Dynamic Interactions

GHC 8102

Abstract: Dynamic interactions play a fundamental role in human capabilities, enabling us to achieve a wide range of tasks such as moving heavy objects, manipulating our surroundings, and changing directions rapidly and safely. In contrast, most conventional robotic systems lack this level of agility and cannot perform dynamic interactions, limiting their potential in practical applications. [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Learning Safe Human-Robot Interactions for a Seamlessly Shared Airspace

NSH 3305

Abstract: The growing need for fully autonomous aerial operations in shared spaces, necessitates the development of reliable agents capable of navigating safely and seamlessly alongside uncertain human agents. In response, we advocate endowing autonomous agents with the ability to predict human actions, comprehend and ground abstract rules in the action space, and embrace the uncertainty [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Generative Evolutionary Search with Diffusion Models for Trajectory Optimization

NSH 4305

Abstract: Diffusion models excel at modeling complex and multimodal trajectory distributions for decision-making and control. Reward-gradient guided denoising has been recently proposed to generate trajectories that maximize both a differentiable reward function and the likelihood under the data distribution captured by a diffusion model. Reward-gradient guided denoising requires a differentiable reward function fitted to both [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Tartancalib: Iterative Wide-Angle Lens Calibration

GHC 8115

Abstract: Mobile vision systems greatly benefit from the large field-of-view enabled by wide-angle lenses. Accurate and robust intrinsic calibration is a critical prerequisite for leveraging this property. Calibrating wide-angle lenses with current state-of-the-art techniques yields poor results due to extreme distortion at the edge. In this work, we present TartanCalib, an accurate and robust method [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Sample-Efficient Reinforcement Learning with applications in Nuclear Fusion

NSH 4305

Abstract: In many practical applications of reinforcement learning (RL), it is expensive to observe state transitions from the environment. In the problem of plasma control for nuclear fusion, the motivating example of this thesis, determining the next state for a given state-action pair requires querying an expensive transition function which can lead to many hours [...]

MSR Thesis Defense
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

[MSR Thesis Talk] Neural Implicit Representations for Medical Ultrasound Volumes and 3D Anatomy-specific Reconstructions

GHC 4405

Abstract: Most Robotic Ultrasound Systems (RUSs) equipped with ultrasound-interpreting algorithms rely on building 3D reconstructions of the entire scanned region or specific anatomies. These 3D reconstructions are typically created via methods that compound or stack 2D tomographic ultrasound images using known poses of the ultrasound transducer with the latter requiring 2D or 3D segmentation. While fast, this class [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Extern
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Social Navigation with Pedestrian Groups

NSH 4305

Abstract: Autonomous navigation in human crowds (i.e., social navigation) presents several challenges: The robot often needs to rely on its noisy sensors to identify and localize pedestrians in human crowds; the robot needs to plan efficient paths to reach its goals; the robot needs to do so in a safe and socially appropriate manner. Recent [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Zero-Shot Video Question Answering with Procedural Programs

GHC 6121

Abstract: We propose to answer zero-shot questions about videos by generating short procedural programs that derive a final answer from solving a sequence of visual subtasks. We present Procedural Video Querying (ProViQ), which uses a large language model to generate such programs from an input question and an API of visual modules in the prompt, [...]