Special Events

RoboOrg Board Games

Newell-Simon Hall 1513

Board game night in RoboLounge with pizza and soda! We will be playing a bunch of games including Settlers of Catan, Codenames, Coup, Reformation and more!

RI Seminar
Dmitry Berenson
Assistant Professor
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department, University of Michigan

What Matters for Deformable Object Manipulation

NSH 1305

Abstract: Deformable objects such as cables and clothes are ubiquitous in factories, hospitals, and homes. While a great deal of work has investigated the manipulation of rigid objects in these settings, manipulation of deformable objects remains under-explored. The problem is indeed challenging, as these objects are not straightforward to model and have infinite-dimensional configuration spaces, [...]

Special Events

RoboOrg FIFA 17 Tournament

Newell-Simon Hall 1513

Kicking off (pun intended) RoboOrg video game tournaments with FIFA 17, food and sodas! Sign up at this link or just show up the day of. Bring a healthy competitive spirit because we have some serious players!

PhD Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Scaling up Self Supervised Robot Learning

Newell Simon Hall 1507

Abstract Robot learning holds promise in alleviating several real world problems, by performing complex behaviors in complex environments. But what is the right way to train these robots? Our methods on self supervision shows encouraging results on several tasks like grasping objects, pushing objects and even flying drones. One key challenge with these methods is [...]

VASC Seminar
Ben Burchfiel
PhD Candidate
Duke

Bayesian Eigenobjects: A Unified Framework for 3D Robot Perception

GHC 6501

  Abstract: Robot-object interaction requires several key perceptual building blocks including object pose estimation, object classification, and partial-object completion. These tasks form the perceptual foundation for many higher level operations including object manipulation and world-state estimation. Most existing approaches to these problems in the context of 3D robot perception assume an existing database of objects [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Planning for a Small Team of Heterogeneous Robots: from Collaborative Exploration to Collaborative Localization

GHC 6501

Abstract: 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 entire area in [...]

Staff Events

Staff Lunch

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

By Invitation Only - All Robotics Institute administrative support staff are invited to join us for our monthly lunch meeting. Speaker/topic to be announced.

VASC Seminar
Laurens van der Maaten
Research Scientist
Facebook AI Research

Two Tales about Image Classification

GHC 6501

Abstract: This talk tells two tales about image-classification systems, both of which are motivated by the real-world deployment of such systems. The first tale introduces a new convolutional neural network architecture, called multi-scale DenseNets, with the ability to adapt dynamically to computational resource limits at inference time. The network uses progressively growing multi-scale convolutions, dense [...]

RI Seminar
Deanna Gates
Assistant Professor
University of Michigan

Optimizing ankle prostheses to improve walking in transtibial amputees

NSH 1305

Abstract: With a prosthetic device, people with a lower limb amputation can remain physically active, but most do not achieve medically recommended physical activity standards and are therefore at a greater risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. Their reduced activity may be attributed to the 10 - 30% increase in energetic cost during walking compared [...]