From Automation to Autonomy and the Ubiquity of Moral Decision Making
Abstract: I argue that there is an important sense in which all decisions are moral decisions and I explore some implications of this insight (and its denial) for the design and human impacts of increasingly complex automated systems and emerging autonomous systems. This insight is obscured when we think about automated systems by the social [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Planning for Sustained Lunar Polar Roving
Abstract: Lunar polar resources can accelerate deep space exploration by resupplying missions with oxygen, water, and propellent. Before lunar resupply can be established, the distribution and concentration of water ice and other volatiles abundant at the poles of the Moon must be verified and mapped. The need for affordable, scalable exploration of the lunar poles [...]
Personalized model of kinematic and dynamic of physical activities
Teruko Yata Memorial Lecture in Robotics Abstract: By now it has become a cliché the statement that the population in industrial world is aging and hence the problem of physical agility is a serious health problem. Moreover this issue is aggravated even with younger population due to our sedative life style. It also is an [...]
2018 National Robotics Week Celebration
The Robotics Institute will celebrate the eighth annual National Robotics Week on April 19 & 20 with lectures, project demonstrations, the annual Mobot (mobile robot) races, and a reception for RI affiliated people. REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN REGISTER HERE If you have any specific questions about the National Robotics Week open house please email Debbie [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Lidar Simulation for Robotic Application Development: Modeling and Evaluation
Abstract: Given the increase in scale and complexity of robotics, robot application development is challenging in the real world. It may be expensive, unsafe, or impractical to collect data, or test systems, in reality. Simulation provides an answer to these challenges. In simulation, data collection is relatively inexpensive, scenes can be procedurally generated, and state [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Adapting to Context in Robot Perception
Abstract: The promised future filled with robots sensing and acting intelligently in the world is near fruition, thanks in part to continuous progress in robotic perception. However, a number of challenges remain before robots and their perception systems can be truly reliable. In particular, we must consider what happens when highly complex perception systems designed [...]
Splitting the Equity Pie & Other Aspects of Equity Compensation
Abstract: Equity compensation can be a very mysterious concept for first-time entrepreneurs. Learn how to make critical decisions from the division of the Founders' Pie through stock option grants & vesting schedules. Biography: Frank Demmler is Innovation Works’ Vice President of The Entrepreneurial Services Team, the internal group that assists early stage companies’ efforts [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Depth Imaging for Navigation in Challenging Environments
Abstract: Depth sensors for robust navigation must measure scenes in darkness, bright light, and in scattering media. Scanning LIDAR devices are the most robust to these conditions, but capture sparse measurements, are slow, and expensive. Consumer depth cameras, on the other hand, are inexpensive and produce dense, high rate depth measurements, but fail in bright [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Learning with Auxiliary Supervision
Abstract: Supervised learning for high-level vision tasks has advanced significantly over the last decade. One of the primary driving forces for these improvements has been the availability of vast amounts of labeled data. However, annotating data is an expensive and time-consuming process. For example, densely segmenting a natural scene image takes approximately 30 minutes. This mode [...]