PhD Thesis Defense

Learning Multi-Modal Navigation for Unmanned Ground Vehicles

GHC 4405

The Event has been Postponed. Abstract: A robot that operates efficiently in a team with a human in an unstructured outdoor environment must be able to translate commands from a modality that is intuitive to its operator into actions. This capability is especially important as robots become ubiquitous and interact with untrained users. For this [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Algorithms, Implementation, and Studies on Eating with a Shared Control Robot Arm

GHC 4405

Abstract: People with upper extremity disabilities are gaining increased independence through the use of assisted devices such as wheelchair-mounted robotic arms. However, the increased capability and dexterity of these robotic arms also makes them challenging to control through accessible interfaces like joysticks, sip-and-puff, and buttons that are lower-dimensional than the control space of the robot. [...]

Faculty Candidate
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Social Signal Processing: A Computational Approach to Sensing, Reconstructing and Understanding Social Interaction

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: Humans convey their thoughts, emotions, and intentions through a concert of social displays: voice, facial expressions, hand gestures, and body posture. Despite advances in machine perception technology, machines are unable to discern the subtle and momentary nuances that carry so much of the information and context of human communication. The encoding of conveyed information [...]

Special Talk
Jia Deng
Assistant Professor
Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Speaker: Jia Deng

GHC 4405

Areas of Interest: Artificial Intelligence, vision, knowledge, reasoning Host: Abhinav Gupta Admin Contact: Chris Downey cdowney@andrew.cmu.edu

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Foraging, Prospecting, and Falsification – Improving Three Aspects of Autonomous Science

NSH 3305

Abstract: Robots exploring the subsurface ocean of Europa, for example, may not have reliable communications with scientists on Earth. Robots exploring with unreliable communications must conduct scientific exploration autonomously. Approaches to deliberative and opportunistic science autonomy that work in the laboratory may not work in the field. This thesis presents three algorithms designed to improve [...]

Faculty Candidate
Petter Nilsson
Postdoctoral Scholar,
Aaron Ames group, CalTech

Faculty Candidate: Petter Nilsson

GHC 6115

Areas of Interest: Improving design practices and advancing the capabilities of autonomous systems Host: Stephen Smith Admin Contact: Keyla Cook keylac@andrew.cmu.edu

RI Seminar
Roberta L. Klatzky
Professor of Psychology
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition , Carnegie Mellon University

Rendering Material Properties through Touch

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Abstract:  Humans haptically perceive the material properties of objects, such as roughness and compliance, through signals from sensory receptors in skin, muscles, tendons, and joints.  Approaches to haptic rendering of material properties operate by stimulating, or attempting to stimulate, some or all of these receptor populations.  My talk will describe research on haptic perception of [...]

VASC Seminar
Burak Uzkent
Computer Vision Engineer
Planet Labs

Object Detection and Tracking on Low Resolution Aerial Images

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract:  Object tracking from an aerial platform poses a number of unique challenges including the small number of pixels representing the objects, large camera motion, and low temporal resolution. Because of these unique reasons, low resolution aerial image analysis needs to be tackled differently than the traditional image analysis both in terms of the sensors, [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier

Characterization of Anchoring in Granular Soils

GHC 8102

Abstract: I will present the results of tests conducted to characterize the pullout force of an anchor buried in cohesionless soils. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to understand how key measures of fin geometry affect an anchor's pullout force. To generalize the data collected, I propose a dimensionless model for predicting the performance of arbitrary fin [...]