- Robotics-seminar - Engineering Mailing Lists

Robotics Seminar 11/17: Brian Flynn (UMass Lowell)
by Smart, William 15 Nov '23

15 Nov '23

Roboticists, Join us this Friday for another Robotics Seminar, this time about grasping, testing, and benchmarking, with Brian Flynn who’s visiting from UMass Lowell. Come grasp some coffee, taste test the cake, but try not to mark the benches at 10am in KEC 1001. cheers -- Bill Evaluating Robotic Grasping and Manipulation Performance and Generalizability Brian Flynn, Universiry of Massachusetts – Lowell Abstract: This talk will review research efforts of the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell for developing evaluation methodologies to measure the performance of robotic grasping and manipulation. We utilize an approach towards modularizing the problem space in both software and hardware, swapping out components to measure their impact. This methodology allows for streamlined experimentation into higher-level capabilities such as the generalizability of components (i.e., their robustness in the face of variation) and better enables reproducibility and replicability. Bio: Brian Flynn is the Robotics Engineer at the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He graduated from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor of Science in Robotics Engineering. Brian's interests include the development and programming of robotic systems and their associated tools and infrastructure.

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Robotics Seminar 11/17: Brian Flynn (UMass Lowell)
by Smart, William 14 Nov '23

14 Nov '23

Roboticists, Sorry for the late email this week, but we have a seminar this Friday with Brian Flynn from UMass Lowell. Still waiting on some of the details, which I’ll send out as soon as I have, but I can confirm the appearance of coffee and cake, in the usual place, at the usual time. KEC 1001, 10am, 11/17. No seminar next week, because of the Thanksgiving holiday. cheers -- Bill

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Robotics Seminar 11/3: Benji Brash (Oregon State University)
by Smart, William 02 Nov '23

02 Nov '23

Roboticists, Just a reminder to join us tomorrow for a talk about how to extract the most from robotics data and what it’s like to be in a robotics startup in 2023. Coffee and cake, you ask? Come to KEC 1001 at 10am and find out. Grad student Q&A in the robotics conference room directly after the talk. cheers -- Bill Surviving the Flood (of Rosbags) Benji Barash, Roboto AI Abstract: Today, robotics engineers have to contend with a flood of log data that robots generate. With little warning, you can end up with thousands of rosbags and other log files. There isn’t much tooling available to manage all of this data, which causes significant friction during research and development. In this talk, we'll cover key lessons learned from productizing robots at Amazon over the last decade, and introduce a framework for processing and searching large volumes of robotics data at scale. We'll also discuss opportunities to host and share robotics datasets and algorithms for community use. Bio: Benji Barash is the co-founder and CEO at Roboto AI, a new startup based in Seattle and Zurich focused on accelerating the search and analysis of robotics data. Prior to founding Roboto, Benji worked as an engineering leader at Amazon Robotics, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2). Benji was a founding engineer on Amazon's drone delivery program in Cambridge, UK, where he led the development of large-scale simulation platforms and safety-critical autonomy algorithms. Originally from London, Benji holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Bristol.

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Robotics Seminar 11/3: Benji Barash (Roboto AI)
by Smart, William 30 Oct '23

30 Oct '23

Roboticists, Join us for our next external speaker of the term, Benji Barash from Roboto AI. In addition to the technical parts of his talk, Benji will share his insights from his time in industry, and what it’s like to form a robotics startup in 2023. Coffee, of course. Cake, definitely. KEC 1001, 10am, as is our habit. cheers -- Bill Surviving the Flood (of Rosbags) Benji Barash, Roboto AI Abstract: Today, robotics engineers have to contend with a flood of log data that robots generate. With little warning, you can end up with thousands of rosbags and other log files. There isn’t much tooling available to manage all of this data, which causes significant friction during research and development. In this talk, we'll cover key lessons learned from productizing robots at Amazon over the last decade, and introduce a framework for processing and searching large volumes of robotics data at scale. We'll also discuss opportunities to host and share robotics datasets and algorithms for community use. Bio: Benji Barash is the co-founder and CEO at Roboto AI, a new startup based in Seattle and Zurich focused on accelerating the search and analysis of robotics data. Prior to founding Roboto, Benji worked as an engineering leader at Amazon Robotics, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2). Benji was a founding engineer on Amazon's drone delivery program in Cambridge, UK, where he led the development of large-scale simulation platforms and safety-critical autonomy algorithms. Originally from London, Benji holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Bristol.

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Robotics Seminar 10/27: Cristina Wilson (Oregon State University)
by Smart, William 26 Oct '23

26 Oct '23

Roboticists, Just a reminder to join us tomorrow for a candid look at early career academic life and some awesome research. Come thirsty for coffee and hungry for cake. KEC 1001, 10am, as usual. cheers -- Bill Proposals, publications, and field work (oh my!): A year in the life of an early career, soft money research faculty Cristina Wilson, Oregon State University Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Wilson discusses the direction of her research program since joining CoRIS as a Research Associate in August 2022, including: (1) an existing robust research line in human-machine teaming for Earth and planetary science data collection; (2) a new promising research line in human-in-loop operation of a robot system for grasping objects underwater; and (3) fledgling research in robotic engineering design cognition and decision making. Dr. Wilson will share her research successes and failures, in terms of proposals (submitted vs. funded), papers (rejected vs. published), and high-stakes field data collection opportunities. Her aim is to be transparent about the joys and challenges facing early career academics, and to provide insight into the opportunities and affordances of soft money positions which are increasingly common in academia. Bio: Dr. Cristina Wilson is a new Assistant Professor (Sr. Research) in the CoRIS institute at OSU. She grew up in Astoria, Oregon and received her BS from Pacific University of Oregon in 2012. Dr. Wilson is a cognitive scientist specializing in the study of human-robot teaming. She received her MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from Washington State University. From 2018 to 2022 she held a joint position as a postdoctoral research fellow in the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Lab at the University of Pennsylvania and the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program at Temple University. Because of her educational background, Dr. Wilson's research tends to emphasize the role of the human mind in human-robot teaming. Her research is currently funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research. In her free time, Dr. Wilson enjoys reading Star Wars Legends books and hiking with her husband, Sean, and their dog, Howard

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Re: [Robotics-seminar] Robotics Seminar 11/3: Benji Brash (Oregon State University)
by Smart, William 25 Oct '23

25 Oct '23

Roboticists, Please ignore that last email; it was meant to be scheduled to send next week on Thursday. This week’s seminar is Cristina Wilson, this Friday. Benji Barash from Robotio AI is *next week*. oops -- Bill From: Robotics-seminar <robotics-seminar-bounces(a)engr.oregonstate.edu> on behalf of "Smart, William" <Bill.Smart(a)oregonstate.edu> Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 2:00 PM To: "robotics-seminar(a)engr.orst.edu" <robotics-seminar(a)engr.oregonstate.edu> Subject: [Robotics-seminar] Robotics Seminar 11/3: Benji Brash (Oregon State University) Roboticists, Just a reminder to join us tomorrow for a talk about how to extract the most from robotics data and what it’s like to be in a robotics startup in 2023. Coffee and cake, you ask? Come to KEC 1001 at 10am and find out. Grad student Q&A in the robotics conference room directly after the talk. cheers -- Bill Surviving the Flood (of Rosbags) Benji Barash, Roboto AI Abstract: Today, robotics engineers have to contend with a flood of log data that robots generate. With little warning, you can end up with thousands of rosbags and other log files. There isn’t much tooling available to manage all of this data, which causes significant friction during research and development. In this talk, we'll cover key lessons learned from productizing robots at Amazon over the last decade, and introduce a framework for processing and searching large volumes of robotics data at scale. We'll also discuss opportunities to host and share robotics datasets and algorithms for community use. Bio: Benji Barash is the co-founder and CEO at Roboto AI, a new startup based in Seattle and Zurich focused on accelerating the search and analysis of robotics data. Prior to founding Roboto, Benji worked as an engineering leader at Amazon Robotics, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2). Benji was a founding engineer on Amazon's drone delivery program in Cambridge, UK, where he led the development of large-scale simulation platforms and safety-critical autonomy algorithms. Originally from London, Benji holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Bristol.

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Robotics Seminar 10/27: Cristina Wilson (Oregon State University)
by Smart, William 24 Oct '23

24 Oct '23

Roboticists, Join us this Friday for a talk by our own Cristina Wilson, who will talk about her research, and give a candid view of early career academic life. Coffee and cake, of course. Usual time, usual place. cheers -- Bill Proposals, publications, and field work (oh my!): A year in the life of an early career, soft money research faculty Cristina Wilson, Oregon State University Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Wilson discusses the direction of her research program since joining CoRIS as a Research Associate in August 2022, including: (1) an existing robust research line in human-machine teaming for Earth and planetary science data collection; (2) a new promising research line in human-in-loop operation of a robot system for grasping objects underwater; and (3) fledgling research in robotic engineering design cognition and decision making. Dr. Wilson will share her research successes and failures, in terms of proposals (submitted vs. funded), papers (rejected vs. published), and high-stakes field data collection opportunities. Her aim is to be transparent about the joys and challenges facing early career academics, and to provide insight into the opportunities and affordances of soft money positions which are increasingly common in academia. Bio: Dr. Cristina Wilson is a new Assistant Professor (Sr. Research) in the CoRIS institute at OSU. She grew up in Astoria, Oregon and received her BS from Pacific University of Oregon in 2012. Dr. Wilson is a cognitive scientist specializing in the study of human-robot teaming. She received her MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from Washington State University. From 2018 to 2022 she held a joint position as a postdoctoral research fellow in the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Lab at the University of Pennsylvania and the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program at Temple University. Because of her educational background, Dr. Wilson's research tends to emphasize the role of the human mind in human-robot teaming. Her research is currently funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research. In her free time, Dr. Wilson enjoys reading Star Wars Legends books and hiking with her husband, Sean, and their dog, Howard

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Robotics Seminar 10/20: Leonardo Bobadilla (Florida International University)
by Smart, William 19 Oct '23

19 Oct '23

Roboticists, Roboticists, A reminder to join us tomorrow for the first external speaker of the term, Prof Leonardo Bobadilla from Florida International University. The talk will be in KEC 1001, and will be followed by a one-hour grad student Q&A in the 3rd floor conference room in Graf Hall. Sorry about the two venues, but we only have the KEC room for an hour. To make up for it, we’ll bribe you with coffee and cake, as usual, from Interzone. cheers -- Bill Solving Robotics Tasks in Sensing, Model, and Privacy Challenged Environments Leonardo Bobadilla, Associate Professor Florida International University Abstract: Several essential domains of robotics and autonomous vehicles, such as surveillance, planetary exploration, oceanic monitoring, automated construction, and search and rescue, require filtering and planning for robots in scenarios where communication, sensing, cooperation, and modeling are difficult. In this talk, I will describe recent ongoing research efforts by my group and collaborators on solving robotic tasks in such scenarios. First, I will show some recent results on energy- efficient navigation in marine environments that work in environments with sensing and modeling uncertainty. Second, we present approaches to coordinate, perform task allocation, do multi-agent filtering, and create policies for robots while preserving privacy. Third, I discuss our current work in designing optimal human-robot interfaces in this challenging environments. Bio: Dr. Leonardo Bobadilla is currently an Associate Professor at the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences (KFSCIS), College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University (FIU). He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under professor Steven M. LaValle. He is interested in understanding the information requirements for solving fundamental robotics tasks such as navigation, patrolling, tracking, and motion safety. He has deployed test beds that can monitor and control many mobile units requiring minimal sensing, actuation, and computation. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers in Robotics, Control, and Oceanic Engineering. His research articles have appeared in prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions of Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, and Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, and in top conferences such as ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation), IROS(IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), and RSS (The Robotics: Science and Systems). His research has been sponsored by the Army Research Office, Department of Homeland Security, DoD, NSF,ONR, DHS, FDEP and the Ware Foundation.

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Robotics Seminar 10/20: Leonardo Bobadilla (Florida International University)
by Smart, William 17 Oct '23

17 Oct '23

Roboticists, Join us this Friday for the first external speaker of the term, Prof Leonardo Bobadilla from Florida International University. The talk will be in KEC 1001, and will be followed by a one-hour grad student Q&A in the 3rd floor conference room in Graf Hall. Sorry about the two venues, but we only have the KEC room for an hour. To make up for it, we’ll bribe you with coffee and cake, as usual, from Interzone. cheers -- Bill Solving Robotics Tasks in Sensing, Model, and Privacy Challenged Environments Leonardo Bobadilla, Associate Professor Florida International University Abstract: Several essential domains of robotics and autonomous vehicles, such as surveillance, planetary exploration, oceanic monitoring, automated construction, and search and rescue, require filtering and planning for robots in scenarios where communication, sensing, cooperation, and modeling are difficult. In this talk, I will describe recent ongoing research efforts by my group and collaborators on solving robotic tasks in such scenarios. First, I will show some recent results on energy- efficient navigation in marine environments that work in environments with sensing and modeling uncertainty. Second, we present approaches to coordinate, perform task allocation, do multi-agent filtering, and create policies for robots while preserving privacy. Third, I discuss our current work in designing optimal human-robot interfaces in this challenging environments. Bio: Dr. Leonardo Bobadilla is currently an Associate Professor at the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences (KFSCIS), College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University (FIU). He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under professor Steven M. LaValle. He is interested in understanding the information requirements for solving fundamental robotics tasks such as navigation, patrolling, tracking, and motion safety. He has deployed test beds that can monitor and control many mobile units requiring minimal sensing, actuation, and computation. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers in Robotics, Control, and Oceanic Engineering. His research articles have appeared in prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions of Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, and Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, and in top conferences such as ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation), IROS(IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), and RSS (The Robotics: Science and Systems). His research has been sponsored by the Army Research Office, Department of Homeland Security, DoD, NSF,ONR, DHS, FDEP and the Ware Foundation.

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Robotics Seminar 10/13: Four Talks about Robots (IROS Edition)
by Smart, William 12 Oct '23

12 Oct '23

Roboticists, A reminder to come and join us to celebrate our success at IROS this year and to find out about some of diverse research that we’re doing here in the Robotics Program. Tomorrow, 10am, KEC 1001, coffee, cake, robots! -- Bill This week, we have four short talks representing the diversity of research that we do here in the Robotics Program. All of these talks present work that recently appeared in the Internation Conference on Robots and Systems (IROS 2023). - Parallelized Control-Aware Motion Planning with Learned Controller Proxies, Chow, Chang, and Hollinger. - Hand Design Approach for Planar Fully Actuated Manipulators, Nave, DuFrene, Davidson, and Grimm. - Robottheory Fitness: GoBot’s Engagement Edge for Spurring Physical Activity in Young Children, Mayoral, Helmi, Warren, Logan, and Fitter. - Geometric Gait Optimization for Interia-Dominated Systems with Nonzero Net Momentum, Yang and Hatton.

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