PhD Thesis Proposal
Extern
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Social Navigation with Pedestrian Groups

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 the pedestrians in human crowds; The robot needs plan efficient paths to reach its goals; The robot needs to do so in a safe and socially appropriate manner. In [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

MSR Thesis Talk: Viraj Parimi

Title: T-HTN: Timeline Based HTN Planning for Multi-Agent Robots   Abstract: Planning in mission-critical systems like deep-space habitats with onboard robotic systems must be robust to unforeseen circumstances. Such systems are expected to complete a set of goals with different deadlines each day for routine maintenance while also accounting for emergencies. With the presence of [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Robust and Scalable Perception For Autonomy

Abstract: Autonomous mobile robots have the potential to drastically improve the quality of our daily life. For example, self-driving vehicles could make transportation safer and more affordable. To navigate complex environments, such robots need a perception system that translates raw sensory data to high-level understanding. This thesis focuses on two fundamental challenges in learning such [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

MSR Thesis Talk: Yiming Zuo

Title: Towards Self-supervised Object Discovery and Tracking   Abstract: Object discovery and multiple object tracking (MOT) are two highly interrelated tasks that are known to be fundamental problems in computer vision, and are crucial for video understanding. Most existing methods rely on supervised training with human annotations, which is laborious and expensive. In this thesis, [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

MSR Thesis Talk: Qiao Gu

Title: Towards Object-generic 6D Pose Estimation Abstract: Pose estimation is a basic module in many robot manipulation pipelines. Estimating the pose of objects in the environment can be useful for grasping, motion planning, or manipulation. However, current state-of-the-art methods for pose estimation either rely on large annotated training sets or simulated data. Further, the long [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

MSR Thesis Talk: Divam Gupta

Title: End-to-End Deep Stereo Layout Estimation   Abstract: Accurate layout estimation is crucial for planning and navigation in robotics applications, such as self-driving. In this paper, we introduce the Stereo Bird's Eye ViewNetwork (SBEVNet), a novel supervised end-to-end framework for estimation of bird's eye view layout from a pair of stereo images. Although our network [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
MSR Student / Senior Systems / Software Engineer
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Michael Tasota – MSR Thesis Talk

Zoom

Title: Design of a Multimodal System for Social Emotional Learning in Early Childhood Classrooms   Abstract: As the prevalence of mobile and touch-based devices continues to expand in society, so too does its impact on young children. With educational technologies also on the rise, young children benefit most from those technologies that are designed to [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

MSR Thesis Talk: Aaron Huang

Title: End-to-End Methods for Autonomous Driving in Simulation   Abstract: Fully autonomous driving is considered one of the grand challenges of modern technology and a variety of approaches have emerged for creating and evaluating autonomous driving agents. The self-driving industry typically adopts a modular software architecture and uses large fleets of autonomous vehicles for data [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

MSR Thesis Talk

Title: Retrieval-based Novel Activity Detection in Untrimmed Videos   Abstract: Accurately detecting activities in untrimmed videos is a challenging task as systems need to handle variance in object scales, multiple viewpoints, and multiple types of activities. Furthermore, in a real-world scenario, activity detectors are often required to detect novel kinds of activities when the need [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Semantic Mapping for Autonomous Navigation and Exploration

Abstract: The last two decades have seen enormous progress in the sensors and algorithms for 3D perception, giving robots the means to build accurate spatial maps and localize themselves in them in real time. The geometric information in these maps is invaluable for navigation while avoiding obstacles, but insufficient, by itself, for robots to robustly [...]