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4 events,
Faculty Events
Ji Zhang
Autonomous Exploration and Navigation, Full Autonomy System, and Beyond
Abstract: In this talk, I will present work on autonomous exploration and introduce our full autonomy system. The work started several years ago from lidar-based state estimation. Building upon the state estimation module, the autonomy system now contains multiple fundamental modules, e.g. collision avoidance, terrain traversability analysis, and waypoint following. At the high level of […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Silong Yong
Towards Efficient and Accurate Neural Geometry and Appearance Representations
Abstract: Neural scene representations have transformed the way we model and understand the visual world, enabling stunningly realistic reconstructions from image data. However, these advances often come at a significant computational cost, particularly due to the inefficiencies in volume rendering. In this talk, I’ll present GL-NeRF, a new approach that tackles this challenge from a […]
RI Seminar
Charlie Kemp
Hello Robot Inc.
What will it take for human-scale mobile manipulators to be happily used in homes?
Abstract: When I started in robotics, my goal was to help robots emulate humans. Yet as my lab worked with people with mobility impairments, my notions of success changed. For assistive applications, emulation of humans is less important than ease of use and usefulness. Helping with seemingly simple tasks, such as scratching an itch or […]
PhD Thesis Proposal
Paulo Rotband Marchtein Fisch
Advancing Spacecraft Autonomy: Optimal GNC, Vision-Based Estimation, and Systems Integration for Small Spacecraft
Abstract: Optimization and machine learning-based methods are increasingly critical in enhancing the autonomy, efficiency, and overall return on investment (ROI) of small, resource-constrained spacecraft. By enabling more effective decision-making, adaptive control, and robust state estimation, these techniques expand mission capabilities while operating within strict mass, power, and computational limitations. This thesis builds on previous contributions […]
0 events,
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4 events,
MSR Thesis Defense
Yunchao Yao
Robotic Manipulation and Dense Tracking for Complex and Deformable Object Dynamics
Abstract: Many everyday human actions—like adjusting the grip on a tool or folding clothes—require the ability to handle complex dynamics involving shifting contact, deformability, or high-speed motion. While easy for humans, object manipulation with complex dynamics or rapidly changing contact conditions presents significant challenges for robots. Enabling robots to perform complex dynamic manipulations would greatly […]
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Xinyu Li
Federated Fine-tuning of Foundation Models under Task and Model Heterogeneity
Abstract: Fine-tuning is crucial for adapting pretrained foundation models (FMs) to specific downstream tasks. When datasets are distributed across multiple clients due to privacy concerns, federated learning (FL) enables collaborative fine-tuning of FMs without requiring data sharing. In this talk, I will present our ongoing work addressing two key challenges in federated fine-tuning of FMs: […]
PhD Thesis Proposal
Moonyoung Lee
Multimodal Robot Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation
Abstract: Robots operating in the real world can leverage intentional contacts with objects to understand and manipulate them effectively—especially in cluttered, partially observable environments where vision alone is insufficient. This thesis explores how intentional physical interactions, combined with haptic sensing, can provide rich spatial, temporal, and physical cues that enhance a robot’s perception and decision-making. […]
PhD Thesis Defense
Jay Patrikar
Rethinking the Safety Case for Risk-Aware Social Embodied Intelligence
Abstract: Achieving real-world robot safety requires more than avoiding risk—it demands embracing and managing it effectively. This thesis presents a safety case for risk-aware decision-making and behavior modeling in complex, multi-agent environments such as aviation and autonomous driving. We argue that safety arises from an agent’s ability to anticipate uncertainty, reason about intent, and act […]
2 events,
PhD Thesis Proposal
Huy Quyen Ngo
Human-System Communications for Expectation Mismatch
Abstract: Robots, and autonomous systems in general, are becoming increasingly more advanced beyond traditional functions. This can potentially widen the mismatch between human expectations of system behaviors during interaction, especially when the systems behave unexpectedly. Unexpected system behaviors could induce negative emotional responses in humans, which not all systems have the capability of recognizing and […]
PhD Thesis Defense
Dominik Bauer
Creating Tendon-Driven Soft Dexterous Robot Hands for the Real World
Abstract: Dexterous soft robot hands have the potential to transform how robots interact with the physical world by enabling safe and robust manipulation, even in unstructured environments. Due to their inherent compliance, soft hands could address many challenges ranging from caregiving and agriculture to precision manufacturing. However, despite this promise, dexterous soft hands have not […]
5 events,
MSR Thesis Defense
Cunxi Dai
Adaptive Pushing with a Balancing Mobile Manipulator
Abstract: Dynamic mobile manipulation—the ability of mobile robots to forcefully interact with their environments—remains a core challenge for deploying robots in human-centered spaces. This thesis investigates this challenge through a focused case study on dynamic pushing, where a dynamically balancing robot manipulates heavy or constrained objects via pushing. The goal is to derive insights that […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Guo Sue
Reinforcement Learning Control of Shape Memory Alloy Based Soft Robotic Platform
Abstract: Soft robots enable safe, adaptive interaction in environments where rigid systems are inadequate, but their continuous, deformable nature makes modeling and control challenging. This work presents a data-driven framework that uses supervised learning and reinforcement learning to model the kinematics of a soft robot, develop task-driven control policies, and form safety filters. Using experimental […]
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Angela Chen
Modeling Therapist Influence on Client Behavior in Psychotherapy
Abstract: Psychotherapy plays a crucial role in mental health. However, the intricate relationships among clients’ mental health outcomes, therapist behaviors, and the therapeutic relationship between therapist and client remain challenging to fully understand. This talk presents an ongoing scientific investigation aimed at clarifying these dynamics. The first part details the design and evaluation of automatic […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Yu Tian
Localization and Mapping through Multi-Sensor Fusion for Pipe Inspection: From Theory To Deployment
Abstract: Pipelines are critical infrastructure for transporting gas, stormwater, and electricity, yet many are aging, poorly documented, and difficult to inspect—particularly those with small diameters or GPS-denied underground environments. This thesis investigates how accurate localization and mapping can be achieved inside small, constrained pipelines through multi-sensor fusion, advancing both algorithmic methods and practical deployment strategies. […]
PhD Thesis Proposal
Rebecca Martin
Integrating Safety Across the Learning-Based Perception Pipeline: From Training to Deployment
Abstract: Robots operating in safety-critical environments must reason under uncertainty and novel situations. However, recent advances in data-driven perception have made it challenging to provide formal safety guarantees, particularly when systems encounter out-of-distribution or previously unseen inputs. For such systems to be safely deployed in the real world, we need to incorporate safety considerations alongside […]
5 events,
MSR Thesis Defense
Junkai Huang
Echoes of the Coliseum: Towards 3D Live streaming of Human-centric Events
Abstract: Human-centered live events have always played a pivotal role in shaping culture and fostering social connections. Traditional 2D live transmissions fail to replicate the immersive quality of physical attendance. Addressing this gap, this paper proposes a framework towards real-time, photo-realistic 3D reconstructions of live events using high-performance 3D Gaussian Splatting. Our solution capitalizes on […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Jialu Gao
Toward Realistic Visual Content Creation: Generative AI for Human-Centric and Product-Centric Scene Synthesis
Abstract: The synthesis of realistic and context-aware visual content is a core challenge in the application of generative AI to both creative media and e-commerce. This thesis explores two distinct but complementary directions in AI-driven scene generation: human-centric insertion and product-centric advertisement creation. In the first part, we present Teleportraits, a training-free pipeline for realistic […]
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Sriram Narayanan
Computational Heat and Light Transport for Scene Understanding
Abstract: Thermal cameras don’t just capture heat maps—they see a mix of emitted and reflected infrared radiation. In this talk, I’ll show how we can computationally disentangle these signals to enable better interpretation of scenes from thermal data. I’ll begin with a dual-band imaging system that leverages differences in spectral emissivity to separate emitted radiation […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Alexander Swerdlow
Unified Vision-Language Modeling
Abstract: Recent advances in large-scale language modeling have demonstrated significant success across various tasks, prompting efforts to extend these capabilities to other modalities, including 2D and 3D vision. However, this effort has been met with a variety of challenges due to fundamental differences in data representations, task-specific requirements, and the relative scarcity of large, high-quality […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Neham Jain
SmokeSeer: 3D Gaussian Splatting for Smoke Removal and Scene Reconstruction
Abstract: In safety-critical environments such as firefighting, search and rescue, and industrial inspection, the presence of dense smoke severely hampers visual perception and degrades the performance of vision-based systems. Traditional dehazing and reconstruction methods are limited by their reliance on data-driven priors or assumptions of static, low-density smoke. We present SmokeSeer, a method that performs […]
4 events,
MSR Thesis Defense
Pujith Kachana
Advancing 3D Semantic and Geometric Reasoning
Abstract: Recent advances in foundation models have dramatically improved reasoning over language, vision, and decision-making for autonomous systems. However, extending this intelligence to embodied agents requires bridging the gap between abstract 2D understanding and grounded 3D interaction—a challenge driven by limited 3D data and the inherent complexity of spatial reasoning. This work addresses the problem […]
PhD Speaking Qualifier
Yulun Zhang
Towards Scalable Layout Optimization for Large-Scale Multi-Robot Coordination Systems
Abstract: With the rapid progress in Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF), researchers have studied how MAPF algorithms can be deployed to coordinate hundreds of robots in large automated warehouses. While most works try to improve the throughput of such warehouses by developing better MAPF algorithms, we focus on improving the throughput by optimizing the warehouse layout. […]
PhD Thesis Defense
Zhengyi Luo
Learning Universal Humanoid Control
Abstract: Since infancy, humans acquire motor skills, behavioral priors, and objectives by learning from their caregivers. Similarly, as we create humanoids in our own image, we aspire for them to learn from us and develop universal physical and cognitive capabilities that are comparable to, or even surpass, our own. In this thesis, we explore how […]
MSR Thesis Defense
Guanqi He
Enhancing the Physical Capabilities of Aerial Robots: From Inspection to Manipulation
Abstract: Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used for high-altitude tasks, many of which require not only perception but also active interaction with the environment. This has led to growing interest in aerial manipulation—combining aerial mobility with manipulation capabilities. In this talk, we explore how to move toward general aerial manipulation: enabling a single system […]
0 events,
0 events,
2 events,
PhD Thesis Defense
Cherie Ho
Flexible Perception for High-Performance Robot Navigation
Abstract: Real-world autonomy requires perception systems that deliver rich, accurate information given the task and environment. However, as robots scale to diverse and rapidly evolving settings, maintaining this level of performance becomes increasingly brittle and labor-intensive, requiring significant human engineering and retraining for even small changes in environment and problem definition. To overcome this bottleneck, […]
VASC Seminar
Hong-Xing “Koven” Yu
Computer Science Department , Stanford University
Generating a Physical World
Abstract: Generating an interactive, enlivened, and physical world enables a wide range of applications in entertainment, embodied AI, education, and creative designs. Recent image/video models have shown promise in producing realistic visuals, yet they operate purely at the pixel level and lack underlying physical grounding, leading to failures in physical fidelity and user interactivity. In […]
1 event,
PhD Thesis Proposal
Tejus Gupta
Learning Bayesian Experimental Design Policies Efficiently and Robustly
Abstract: Bayesian Experimental Design (BED) provides a principled framework for sequential data-collection under uncertainty, and is used in a wide set of domains such as clinical trials, ecological monitoring, and hyperparameter optimization. Despite its wide applicability, BED methods remain challenging to deploy in practice due to their significant computational demands. This thesis addresses these computational […]
0 events,
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University