PhD Thesis Proposal
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Efficient Robot Decision-Making for Achieving Multiple Independent Tasks

Zoom Link Abstract: We focus on robotics applications where a robot is required to accomplish a set of tasks that are partially observable and evolve independently of each other according to their dynamics. One such domain that we target in this work is decision-making for a robot waiter waiting tables at a restaurant. The robot [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Image to LiDAR Map Registration using Late Feature Projection

Zoom Link Abstract: Accurate localization is essential for autonomous operation in many problem domains. This is most often performed by comparing LiDAR scans collected in real-time to a HD point cloud based map. While this enables centimeter-level accuracy, it depends on an expensive LiDAR sensor at run time. Recently, efforts have been underway to reduce [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Vision with Small Baselines

Zoom Link Abstract: 3D sensing with portable imaging systems is becoming more and more popular in computer vision applications such as autonomous driving, virtual reality, robotics manipulation and surveillance, due to the decreasing expense and size of RGB cameras. Despite the compactness and portability of the small baseline vision systems, it is well-known that the [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Provably Constant-time Motion Planning

Zoom Link Abstract: In manufacturing and warehouse scenarios, robots often perform recurring manipulation tasks in structured environments. Fast and reliable motion planning is one of the key elements that ensure efficient operations in such environments. A very common example scenario is of manipulators working at conveyor belts, where they have limited time to pick moving [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Humans In Their Natural Habitat: Training AI to Understand People

Zoom Link Abstract: Computer vision has a great potential to help our daily lives by searching for lost keys, watering flowers or reminding us to take a pill. To succeed with such tasks, computer vision methods need to be trained from real and diverse examples of our daily dynamic scenes. First, we need to give [...]

VASC Seminar
Gemma Roig
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science, Goethe University Frankfurt

Task-specific Vision DNN Models and Their Relation for Explaining Different Areas of the Visual Cortex

Virtual VASC Seminar:  https://cmu.zoom.us/j/249106600   Abstract:  Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are state-of-the-art models for many vision tasks. We propose an approach to assess the relationship between visual tasks and their task-specific models. Our method uses Representation Similarity Analysis (RSA), which is commonly used to find a correlation between neuronal responses from brain data and models. [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

A Theory of Fermat Paths for Non-line-of-sight Shape Reconstruction

Zoom Link Abstract: Traditionally, computer vision systems and algorithms, such as stereo vision, and shape from shading, have been developed to mimic human vision. As a consequence, a lot of these systems operate under constraints that we take for granted in human vision. An example of such a constraint is that the scene of interest [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
PhD Student
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Learning Contextual Actions for Heuristic Search-Based Motion Planning

Zoom Link Abstract: Heuristic search-based motion planning can be computationally costly in large state and action spaces. In this work we explore the use of generative models to learn contextual actions for successor generation in heuristic search. We focus on cases where the robot operates in similar environments, i.e. environments drawn from some underlying distribution. [...]

VASC Seminar
Cristian Sminchisescu
Research Scientist / Professor
Google / Lund University

End-to-end Generative 3D Human Shape and Pose Models and Active Human Sensing

Virtual VASC Seminar:  https://cmu.zoom.us/j/249106600 Title:  End-to-end Generative 3D Human Shape and Pose Models and Active Human Sensing Abstract:  I will review some of our recent work in 3d human modeling, synthesis, and active vision. I will present our new, end-to-end trainable nonlinear statistical 3d human shape and pose models of different resolutions (GHUM and GHUMLite) as [...]