Calendar of Events
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0 events,
2 events,
PhD Thesis Defense
Spectral Mapping using Simple Sensors
Abstract: Spectral mapping holds significant importance in many exploration endeavors as it facilitates a deeper comprehension of material composition within a surveyed area. While imaging spectrometers excel in recording reflectance spectra into spectral maps, their large physical footprint, substantial power requirements, and operational intricacies render them unsuitable for integration into small rovers or resource-constrained missions. […]
VASC Seminar
Ilya Chugunov
Computational Imaging Lab, Princeton University
Neural Field Representations of Mobile Computational Photography
Abstract: Burst imaging pipelines allow cellphones to compensate for less-than-ideal optical and sensor hardware by computationally merging multiple lower-quality images into a single high-quality output. The main challenge for these pipelines is compensating for pixel motion, estimating how to align and merge measurements across time while the user's natural hand tremor involuntarily shakes the camera. In […]
2 events,
MSR Thesis Defense
Simulated Encounters of the Third Kind: Scenario-Based Approach to Designing Guide Robots
Abstract: Navigating through unfamiliar environments is a challenging task. For people who are blind or have low vision (BLV), navigation can be particularly daunting. Guide robots are a type of service robot that can assist BLV people with navigation tasks. A significant amount of research related to guide robots has focused on technical contributions, while a […]
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Composing Generative and Discriminative Models for Better Generalization
Abstract: Computer Vision is Correspondence, correspondence, correspondence! Inspite of the singular definition of computer vision, we still have two broad categories of approaches in the literature. Generative Models, like Stable Diffusion, learn a correspondence between image and text modality, while learning a mapping from text to image. Discriminative Models, like CLIP, on the other hand […]
2 events,
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Lower Bounds for Moving Target Traveling Salesman Motion Planning with Obstacles
Abstract: We study the problem of finding a trajectory for an agent to intercept a number of moving targets while avoiding obstacles. Applications include resupplying naval ships at sea and recharging aerial vehicles with a ground vehicle. We model the problem as an extension of the traveling salesman problem, which we refer to as the [...]
PhD Thesis Proposal
Towards Pragmatic Time Series Intelligence
Abstract: The widespread adoption of time series machine learning (ML) models faces multiple challenges involving data, modeling and evaluation. Data. Modern ML models depend on copious amounts of cohesive and reliably annotated data for training and evaluation. However, labeled data is not always available and reliable, and can also be dispersed across different locations. We [...]
3 events,
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Probabilistic 3D Multi-Object Cooperative Tracking for Autonomous Driving via Differentiable Multi-Sensor Kalman Filter
Abstract: Current state-of-the-art autonomous driving vehicles mainly rely on each individual sensor system to perform perception tasks. Such a framework's reliability could be limited by occlusion or sensor failure. To address this issue, more recent research proposes using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication to share perception information with others. However, most relevant works focus only on cooperative [...]
MSR Thesis Defense
Super Odometry: Selective Fusion Towards All-degraded Environments
Abstract: Robust odometry is at the core of robotics and autonomous systems operating navigation, exploration, and locomotion in complex environments for a broad spectrum of applications. While great progress has been made, the robustness of the odometry system still remains a grand challenge. This talk introduces Super Odometry, an approach that leverages selective fusion to [...]
PhD Thesis Proposal
Improved Surface Estimation for use in Virtual Fixtures during Retinal Surgery
Abstract: Retinal surgery procedures require surgeons to manipulate very delicate tissues with little room for error. During epiretinal membrane surgery, to reduce chances of recurrence, surgeons may have to remove the 10 µm thick internal limiting membrane from the retinal surface. An experimental procedure to treat retinal vein occlusion is retinal vein cannulation. During this [...]
2 events,
PhD Thesis Defense
Causal Robot Learning for Manipulation
Abstract: Two decades into the third age of AI, the rise of deep learning has yielded two seemingly disparate realities. In one, massive accomplishments have been achieved in deep reinforcement learning, protein folding, and large language models. Yet, in the other, the promises of deep learning to empower robots that operate robustly in real-world environments [...]
RI Seminar
Saurabh Gupta
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Robot Learning by Understanding Egocentric Videos
Abstract: True gains of machine learning in AI sub-fields such as computer vision and natural language processing have come about from the use of large-scale diverse datasets for learning. In this talk, I will discuss how we can leverage large-scale diverse data in the form of egocentric videos (first-person videos of humans conducting different tasks) [...]
0 events,
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1 event,
VASC Seminar
Special VASC seminar on AR/VR at CMU
Special VASC seminar on AR/VR at CMU
Three 15-minute talks are scheduled to showcase the AR/VR research conducted at CMU. Below, you'll find the speaker names, talk titles, and abstracts. Speaker: Yehonathan Litman Title: StableMaterial: Lighting aware Texture & Material Diffusion Prior for Inverse Rendering Abstract: Recent works in inverse rendering have shown promise in using multi-view images of an object […]
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1 event,
Seminar
Special Seminar
Speaker: Abhisesh Silwal Title: Robotics and AI for Sustainable Agriculture Abstract: Production agriculture plays a critical role in our lives, providing food security and enabling sustainability. Despite its immense importance, it currently faces many challenges including shortage of farmworkers, increasing production costs, excess use of herbicides just to name a few. Robotics and artificial intelligence-based [...]
0 events,
0 events,
0 events,
2 events,
PhD Thesis Defense
Learning to Manipulate Using Diverse Datasets
Abstract: Autonomous agents can play games (like Chess, Go, and even Starcraft), they can help make complex scientific predictions (e.g., protein folding), and they can even write entire computer programs, with just a bit of prompting. However, even the most basic physical manipulation skills, like unlocking and opening a door, still remain literally out-of-reach. The [...]
VASC Seminar
Mian Wei
University of Toronto
Passive Ultra-Wideband Single-Photon Imaging
Abstract: High-speed light sources, fast cameras, and depth sensors have made it possible to image dynamic phenomena occurring in ever smaller time intervals with the help of actively-controlled light sources and synchronization. Unfortunately, while these techniques do capture ultrafast events, they cannot simultaneously capture slower ones too. I will discuss our recent work on passive ultra-wideband […]
0 events,
0 events,
1 event,
PhD Thesis Proposal
3D Perception In-The-Wild
Abstract: State estimation is a fundamental component of embodied perception. Contemporary autonomous vehicle (AV) benchmarks have advanced techniques for training 3D detectors, particularly on large-scale data. Notably, although prior work has nearly solved 3D object detection for a few common classes (e.g., pedestrian and car), detecting many rare classes in-the-tail (e.g., debris and stroller) remains […]
0 events,
0 events,
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1 event,
MSR Thesis Defense
Learning on the Move: Integrating Action and Perception for Mobile Manipulation
Abstract: While there has been remarkable progress recently in the fields of manipulation and locomotion, mobile manipulation remains a long-standing challenge. Compared to locomotion or static manipulation, a mobile system must make a diverse range of long-horizon tasks feasible in unstructured and dynamic environments. While the applications are broad and interesting, there are a plethora […]
2 events,
PhD Thesis Proposal
Differentiable Convex Modeling for Robotic Planning and Control
Abstract: Robotic simulation, planning, estimation, and control, have all been built on top of numerical optimization. In this same time, modern convex optimization has matured into a robust technology delivering globally optimal solutions in polynomial time. With advances in differentiable optimization and custom solvers capable of producing smooth derivatives, convex modeling has become fast, reliable, […]
Seminar
Dr. Audrey Sedal
Mechanical Engineering, McGill University
Simulation-Driven Soft Robotics
Abstract: Soft-bodied robots present a compelling solution for navigating tight spaces and interacting with unknown obstacles, with potential applications in inspection, medicine, and AR/VR. Yet, even after a decade, soft robots remain largely in the prototype phase without scaling to the tasks where they show the most promise. These systems are difficult to design and […]
1 event,
PhD Thesis Defense
Plan to Learn: Active Robot Learning by Planning
Abstract: Robots need a diverse repertoire of capable motor skills to succeed in the open world. Such a skillset cannot be learned or designed purely on human initiative. In this thesis, we advocate for an active continual learning approach that enables robots to take charge of their own learning. The goal of an autonomously learning […]
1 event,
Faculty Events
RI Faculty Business Meeting
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
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1 event,
MSR Thesis Defense
Continual Personalization of Human Actions with Prompt Tuning
Abstract: In interactive computing devices (VR/XR headsets), users interact with the virtual world using hand gestures and body actions. Typically, models deployed in such XR devices are static and limited to their default set of action classes. The goal of our research is to provide users and developers with the capability to personalize their experience by […]
0 events,
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Carnegie Mellon University