- Robotics-seminar - Engineering Mailing Lists

Robotics Seminar 8/4: Michael Otte (University of Maryland)
by Bill Smart 27 Jul '23

27 Jul '23

Roboticists, Yes, a second seminar next week! This one is at the usual time, on the usual day, in the usual place. 10am, Friday 8/4, Rogers 230. Michael Otte, from the University of Maryland College Park, will give a talk titled "How can multiple robots better work together when communication is limited?" As usual, there will be a grad student session right after the talk. And, yes, as usual Interzone will provide the caffeine and sugar. cheers -- Bill

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Special Robotics Seminar: Darnell Moore (Amazon Lab126), 8/2
by Bill Smart 26 Jul '23

26 Jul '23

Roboticists, We have a special seminar next week. Dr. Darnell Moore from Amazon Lab126 will be talking about consumer robotics and Amazon's Astro robot in particular. This will be a shorter talk than usual, from 10am to 10:30am, followed by a student Q&A, from 10:30 to 11:30. The official poster will go out shortly, once we have a title and abstract but, in the meantime, please block out the time on your calendars and plan on coming. Yes, coffee, tea, and cake, too. cheers -- Bill

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Josh Bhagat Smith's PhD Preliminary Exam: June 28th, 11AM, Rog 226
by Bhagat Smith, Joshua R 26 Jun '23

26 Jun '23

I will be presenting my preliminary exam on Wednesday, June 28th at 11 AM. Everyone is welcome to attend either in person or via Zoom. *Title: *Adaptive Workload Estimation for Human-Robot Teams *Date & Time:* Wednesday, June 28th, 11:00 AM *Location:* Rogers 226 *Zoom Link:* https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foregonsta… *Password:* 833055 *Abstract: * Human-robot teams involve humans and robots collaborating to achieve tasks under various environmental conditions. Successful teaming requires robots to adapt autonomously in real-time to a human teammate’s internal state. An essential element of such adaptation is the ability to estimate their teammate's workload in unknown situations. Existing workload models use machine learning to model the relationships between physiological metrics and workload; however, these methods are susceptible to individual differences and are heavily influenced by other factors (e.g., experience, stress, and fatigue). These methods cannot generalize to unknown tasks while accounting for these factors, as standard machine learning approaches assume data consists of independent and identically distributed (IID) samples. This assumption does not necessarily hold for estimating workload for new tasks. This dissertation proposes a meta-learning based workload estimation method that uses contextual examples to adapt a machine learning model’s parameters, such that the method can accurately estimate workload across both known and unknown tasks. This dissertation proposal seeks to enhance existing workload estimation methods and learn principles for deploying these methods onboard a robot in realistic environments. A robot’s ability to recognize the human’s workload in new situations is a key requirement for realizing successful human-robot collaboration. *Advisor:* Dr. Julie A. Adams *Committee Members:* Dr. Kagan Tumer, Dr. Naomi Fitter, Dr. Stefan Lee, Dr. Christopher A. Sanchez -- Thanks, Josh Bhagat Smith

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Robotics Seminar 6/16: Three Talks about Robots
by Bill Smart 15 Jun '23

15 Jun '23

Roboticists, Join us tomorrow for the final seminar for the academic year for three short talks about robots. Jinwoo, Anna, and Rakesh will each give a short talk about their work. This is a mash-up of ICRA Madness and Qualifying Exam talk, with added coffee, tea, and cake. We're planning on finishing earlier than usual for those planning to go to the MIME graduation ceremony. Rogers 230, 10am. Come and celebrate the end of term, and the glory of robotics research! -- Bill

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Informal AMA with Jordan Meader Today
by Bill Smart 08 Jun '23

08 Jun '23

Roboticists, Jordan Meader, program graduate and OMIC researcher, is in town today, and has offered to meet with interested (and interesting) people in the 3rd floor robotics seminar room at 4pm today, for an informal Q&A session about the program, the real world, and all things robotic. cheers -- Bill

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Robotics Seminar 6/9: Jordan Meader (OMIC) & Jamison Heard (RIT)
by Bill Smart 08 Jun '23

08 Jun '23

Roboticists, Join us this Friday for an unscheduled seminar, with coffee, tea, cake, and old friends. Vacations and COVID have caused us to reschedule our planned ICRA Madness seminar. However, two former program graduate students are in town, and have generously volunteered to talk about what they're up to now, and to answer any questions you have about life after the Program. Yes, I realize that Jamison technically graduated from Vanderbilt, but he's still one of us. cheers -- Bill *Life Beyond the Robotics ProgramJordan Meader & Jamison HeardAbstract:* Jordan Meader and Jamison Heard will talk about their experiences in the real world, and how what they learnned in the Robotics Program prepared them (or not) for the jobs that they have now. There will be an extended question-and-answer session for this seminar, so come armed with extra questions. *Jordan Bio:* Jordan Meader is the Robotics Solutions Researcher at OMIC R&D. Jordan’s interests lie in robotic manipulation and the development of novel automation technologies in manufacturing. In robotic manipulation, Jordan experiments with new end of arm tools designed to tackle new manufacturing problems whilst removing common failure points in the hardware. In automation, Jordan acts as a consultant providing insight to new processes for large manufacturers and voicing industry needs to integrators. At OMIC, Jordan’s lab is responsible for overseeing all projects involving robotics, automation or that contain a high demand for electronics. Jordan serves as the onsite tech for IT, networking, computer hardware/software, machine troubleshooting/repair, etc. If it runs on electricity, there’s a chance Jordan touched it. *Jamison Bio: *Jamison Heard received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in 2019 with Dr. Julie A. Adams as his PhD advisor. He then started an assistant professor position at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he leads the Adaptive Human-Robot Teaming (AHRT) Lab and is involved in many university wide AI initiatives, such as the NSF-funded National Research Traineeship Human-Aware AI Program. His research delves into intelligent human state modeling, sophisticated data fusion methods, explainable AI systems, generative modeling for domain adaptations, out-of-distribution reinforcement learning, and human-robot teaming.

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Robotics Seminar 6/2: Bill Smart (OSU)
by Bill Smart 01 Jun '23

01 Jun '23

Roboticists, Just a reminder that I'll be talking tomorrow about some of the robotics work that's going on at Amazon. -- Bill

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Robots Seminar 6/2: Bill Smart (OSU)
by Bill Smart 30 May '23

30 May '23

Roboticists, This Friday, I'll be doing a presentation about some of the robotics research going on at Amazon, and talking about some of the differences between academic and industry robotics. Yes, coffee, tea, and cake will be there, too. -- Bill

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Robotics Seminar 5/26: Paul Oh (UNLV)
by Bill Smart 25 May '23

25 May '23

Roboticists, Just a reminder about the seminar tomorrow, with Paul Oh from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, talking about disaster response and consumer robots. cheers -- Bill *From Disaster Response to Consumer RoboticsPaul Oh, University of Nevada Las Vegas* *Abstract:* The lines between consumer electronics and consumer robotics is blurry. For example, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the list of robotics companies exhibits has grown to over 400. Furthermore driverless cars, drones, exo-skeletons, 3D printers and virtual-reality systems are examples of robots that have a consumer focus. This talk highlights observations of this phenomena. This is given in the context of an Age of Acceleration characterized by deep learning, cloud-computing, and artificial intelligence. The talk serves to suggest pathways for roboticists and their design and development endeavors. *Bio:* Paul Oh is the Lincy Professor of Unmanned Aerial Systems in the mechanical engineering department for the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering. He is establishing an unmanned autonomous systems laboratory at UNLV, complete with a fleet of drones and several humanoid robots. From 2000 to 2014, he served as a mechanical engineering professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia and founded and directed the Drexel Autonomous Systems Laboratory (DASL). Oh is the former program director for robotics at the National Science Foundation where he managed a portfolio that supported almost all robotics research in American universities. He has worked for Boeing, the Office of Naval Research and the NASA Caltech/Jet Propulsion Lab.

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Robotics Seminar 5/26: Paul Oh
by Bill Smart 25 May '23

25 May '23

Roboticists, Join us for the seminar this week, when Paul Oh from the University of Nevada Las Vegas will be talking about disaster response and commercial robots. 10am on Friday, coffee, tea, cake, and robots! cheers -- Bill *From Disaster Response to Consumer RoboticsPaul Oh, University of Nevada Las Vegas* *Abstract: *The lines between consumer electronics and consumer robotics is blurry. For example, at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the list of robotics companies exhibits has grown to over 400. Furthermore driverless cars, drones, exo-skeletons, 3D printers and virtual-reality systems are examples of robots that have a consumer focus. This talk highlights observations of this phenomena. This is given in the context of an Age of Acceleration characterized by deep learning, cloud-computing, and artificial intelligence. The talk serves to suggest pathways for roboticists and their design and development endeavors. *Bio:* Paul Oh is the Lincy Professor of Unmanned Aerial Systems in the mechanical engineering department for the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering. He is establishing an unmanned autonomous systems laboratory at UNLV, complete with a fleet of drones and several humanoid robots. From 2000 to 2014, he served as a mechanical engineering professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia and founded and directed the Drexel Autonomous Systems Laboratory (DASL). Oh is the former program director for robotics at the National Science Foundation where he managed a portfolio that supported almost all robotics research in American universities. He has worked for Boeing, the Office of Naval Research and the NASA Caltech/Jet Propulsion Lab.

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