- Robotics-seminar - Engineering Mailing Lists

Robotics Seminar 1/10: Matthew Gombolay (Georgia Tech)
by Fitter, Naomi 07 Jan '25

07 Jan '25

Roboticists, Welcome back! Hope everyone had a nice winter break. We're jumping back into seminar this term with an exciting external speaker right away. Our speaker this week will be Dr. Matthew Gombolay, and expert in robotics and AI who thinks a lot about human-robot interaction and safe/explainable systems. As a reminder, everyone is expected to come to the seminar. We’ve got a strict no-device policy. We also have, as always, coffee and coffee cake. For the fall term, we're back to Rogers Hall - we'll be meeting in Rogers 230, with the usual timing of 10am Fridays. Please plan to head there each Friday at 10am. See you then! Cheers, Naomi Value Alignment and Safety via Interactive and Explainable Human-Robot Learning Matthew Gombolay, Georgia Tech Abstract: Value alignment and safety in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) are key problems receiving intense focus writ large due to the emergent success of large models in many intelligence benchmarks. The threat of misaligned models becomes even more stark as we look to embody agents physically for human-robot interaction. In this talk, I will present human-centered approaches to address these critical challenges in generative AI through interactive and explainable robot learning. First, I will define challenges for safety and alignment in AI/Robotics and show that addressing the problem is more difficult than it appears at first glance. Second, I will share our recent advances to align and verify the properties of learned robot behavior through interactive machine learning and explainable artificial intelligence. Finally, I will present a roadmap for future work to bring together critical stakeholders for transdisciplinary research for beneficent AI. Bio: Dr. Matthew Gombolay is an Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was named the Anne and Alan Taetle Early-career Assistant Professor in 2018. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2011, an S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Autonomous Systems from MIT in 2017. Between defending his dissertation and joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Dr. Gombolay served as technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, transitioning his research to the U.S. Navy and earning an R&D 100 Award. His publication record includes best paper awards and nominations from the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the ACM/IEEE Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, the Conference on Robot Learning, and Robotics: Science and Systems. Dr. Gombolay was selected as a DARPA Riser and received the Early Career Award from the National Fire Control Symposium, a NASA Early Career Fellowship, and the NSF CAREER award.

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Microsoft 365 security: You have messages in quarantine
by quarantine＠messaging.microsoft.com 10 Dec '24

10 Dec '24

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Join Us for: Hands-On Coding with IBM's Quantum Computers - 4-Week Asynchronous Workshop
by quantum＠quantgates.co.uk 10 Dec '24

10 Dec '24

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Robotics Seminar 12/6: Evan Ackerman (IEEE Spectrum)
by Fitter, Naomi 06 Dec '24

06 Dec '24

Roboticists, This week, we're having a visit from Evan Ackerman, Senior Editor of IEEE Spectrum, for our Friday seminar. Bring your big questions and ideas related to communicating your research with the general public (and fellow researchers) through forums like IEEE Spectrum, which can sometimes have a broad reach beyond typical academic journals and conferences. As a reminder, everyone is expected to come to the seminar. We’ve got a strict no-device policy. We also have, as always, coffee and coffee cake. For the fall, we still have Covell Hall 221 as our seminar location, with the usual timing of 10am Fridays. (We'll be back in a more usual spot next term.) Looking forward to the seminar! See you there. Cheers, Naomi P.S. If you haven't signed up for ROB 507 for next term yet, now is a great time to register. The seminar time was listed incorrectly at first, but we have a corrected Friday offering now. If you are currently registered for the Thursday section, please switch over to Friday, so that old/incorrect listing can be deleted. Thanks!

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No Seminar this Week - See You Week 10!
by Fitter, Naomi 26 Nov '24

26 Nov '24

Hi everyone, There is no robotics seminar this week due to Thanksgiving. Have a good holiday! We will regroup next week for a final seminar of the term from Evan Ackerman of IEEE Spectrum. The flavor will be part informative, part encouraging you to develop your own public-facing scientific communication about your work. Please arrive with ideas and questions that can help you make the most of Evan's visit, including thoughts on your own prospective future IEEE Spectrum articles. Cheers, Naomi

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Robotics Seminar 11/22: Avik De (Ghost Robotics)
by Fitter, Naomi 21 Nov '24

21 Nov '24

Roboticists, This week, we're having a talk from Avik De, CTO of Ghost Robotics and expert in bio-inspired robotics, for our Friday seminar. Coffee and cake as always. See you in Covell Hall 221 on Friday at 10am! Cheers, Naomi ________________________________________________ Power-efficient Autonomous Mobile Robots Avik De, CTO of Ghost Robotics Abstract: Enhanced robot autonomy is hindered by fundamental constraints in power and computation. With this motivation, I will discuss a few projects to optimize robot performance within these constraints, in academia and industry. On the design side, I will discuss how applying an optimization-based framework to the flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle (FWMAV) design problem allowed us to reason about the benefits of a nonlinear transmission in the RoboBee, as well as optimal design for the Vision 60 quadrupedal robot. On the control side, I will discuss how hierarchical and modular control allows us to have onboard flight control on a 25 mg, 0.3 W microcontroller, as well as obstacle-aware dynamic legged locomotion with 5 W of computational power. I will also discuss recent progress on increasing robot capabilities within this framework by combining model-based methods with machine learning in computationally efficient ways. Lastly, I will share some of our experience with the challenges in growing a robotics company, maintaining innovation while scaling manufacturing. Bio: Avik De is co-founder and CTO of Ghost Robotics, a startup company commercializing legged robotics in Philadelphia. Previously, Avik completed a postdoc at Harvard SEAS advised by Rob Wood, where he researched design of micro-scale flapping robots, as well as strategies for their control. He received his PhD in Sep 2017, at the GRASP laboratory (Kodlab) in the University of Pennsylvania advised by Dan Koditschek. The main thread tying all of his work has been bio-inspired design and control strongly anchored in empirical robotics. His research has focused on examining the strengths and weaknesses of modular and hierarchical control strategies, as well as demonstrating efficient and effective control of dynamic locomotion in a way that generalizes across platforms (quadruped, tailed biped, etc.) and behaviors (hopping, running, walking, etc.).

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Robotics Seminar 11/15: David Kaber (Oregon State University)
by Fitter, Naomi 14 Nov '24

14 Nov '24

Roboticists, This week, we're having a talk from our very own Dr. David Kaber (an expert on human systems engineering with an emphasis on human-automaton interaction) for our Friday seminar. Coffee and cake as always. See you in Covell Hall 221 on Friday at 10am! Cheers, Naomi ________________________________________________ Unmanned Systems Research and a Framework of Autonomous and Automated Agents Dr. David Kaber, College of Engineering Dean's Professor, Oregon State University Abstract: Research on unmanned systems has addressed a need to identify and define autonomous system design requirements. The same work has surveyed system features that impose demands (workload) on human operators and has formulated models to predict workload outcomes of design. In this talk, I will differentiate the concepts of automation and autonomy within a framework of agents. The framework is complemented by observations on characteristics of automated vs. autonomous systems with examples. I will also discuss levels of system automation along with types of autonomy. A definition of autonomy is developed throughout the talk to a form with utility for engineering. Key requirements for design of autonomy in unmanned (and other complex) systems include agent viability in context, agent self-governance in goal formulation, and independence in defined task performance. The main findings of this research are that demands of automated agents on the human-task-environment system should be absent from design of autonomous agents. Furthermore, the design of automated systems is always automation-centric, despite our best efforts at human-centered approaches. Current empirical work on human-autonomy teaming design is summarized. Bio: David Kaber is currently the College of Engineering Dean’s Professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (MIME) at Oregon State University. Kaber recently completed a six-year term of service as Chair of the Industrial & Systems Engineering Department at the University of Florida (UF). Prior to joining UF, Kaber was a distinguished professor of ISE at North Carolina State University where he also served as the Director of Research for the Ergonomics Center of North Carolina. Kaber’s primary area of research interest is human-systems engineering with a focus on human-automaton interaction, including design for levels of automation and adaptive automation in complex human in-the-loop systems. Domains of study for his research have included physical work systems, industrial safety systems, robotic systems, transportation systems and healthcare. Kaber is a fellow of IEEE and immediate past Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems. He is also a fellow of Institute of Industrial Engineers and the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society. Kaber is a Board Certified Human Factors Professional (BCPE) and a Board Certified Safety Professional (BCSP).

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Robotics Seminar 11/8: Carina Buzo Tipton (Oregon State OID)
by Fitter, Naomi 08 Nov '24

08 Nov '24

Roboticists, This week, we're having a workshop with Dr. Carina M. Buzo Tipton (an expert on thinking through broader impacts plans for grants proposals/outreach efforts/education and more!) for our Friday seminar. As a reminder, everyone is expected to come to the seminar. We’ve got a strict no-device policy. We also have, as always, coffee and coffee cake. For the fall, we have Covell Hall 221 as our seminar location, with the usual timing of 10am Fridays. Please plan to head there each Friday at 10am. Looking forward to the seminar! See you there. Cheers, Naomi ________________________________________________ Access, Belonging, and Success: DEI Guidance for Research Carina Buzo Tipton, Assistant Director for DEI Education, OSU OID Abstract: As effective as we can be in our scholarship, research, and classrooms, if there are barriers to access, belonging, and success then our work will be limited. This interactive workshop will introduce key topics and questions for ensuring that the work you are engaged in considers the implications of possible barriers to entry and identifying opportunities for integrating access, belonging, and success into your efforts. Concretely for those engaged in robotics research, this line of thinking will help you articulate the broader impacts of your work, something that many researchers will need to do when writing (for example) proposals for the National Science Foundation and other funding bodies, in addition to supporting the development of useful outreach related to research efforts. For best results, come to the workshop with some type of proposal or research dissemination task in mind (e.g., large robotics research grant, fellowship, SBIR award, outreach effort in development - think about what is helpful to you!) and use the experience to develop ideas for these research efforts. Bio: Dr. Carina M. Buzo Tipton (she/her) is the assistant director for DEI education in the office of institutional diversity. Her published works reach across many topics including institutional DEI curriculum, sexual assault education and consent work, carceral institutional critique, trauma informed pedagogies, Chicanx/Latine gender and sexuality, and student development. Carina’s research and scholarship focus on institutional change, where she argues that if there are critiques of the institution, there must also be solutions, and where there is institutional harm, there must also be healing.

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Robotics Seminar 11/1: Brittany Duncan (University of Nebraska - Lincoln)
by Fitter, Naomi 01 Nov '24

01 Nov '24

Roboticists, This week, we're having a visit from Dr. Brittany Duncan (an expert on unmanned aerial systems, especially human interactions with small drones and field work with UAVs) for our Friday seminar. As a reminder, everyone is expected to come to the seminar. We’ve got a strict no-device policy. We also have, as always, coffee and coffee cake. For the fall, we still have Covell Hall 221 as our seminar location, with the usual timing of 10am Fridays. Please plan to head there each Friday at 10am. Looking forward to the seminar! See you there. Cheers, Naomi ________________________________________________ Improving Drones to Interact with Everyone Brittany Duncan, Associate Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln Abstract: This talk will focus on the role of human-robot interaction with drones in public spaces and how we can create systems that all end users can successfully control. Prior work on human-interaction with aerial robots has focused on communication from the users or about the intended direction of flight, but has not considered how to distance from and communicate to novice users in unconstrained environments. In this presentation, it will be argued that the diverse users and open-ended nature of public interactions offers a rich exploration space for foundational interaction research with aerial robots. Findings will be presented from both lab-based and design studies, while context will be provided from the field-based research on prescribed aerial ignitions and environmental sampling that is central to the NIMBUS lab. Building upon this foundational work will require a better understanding of user skill acquisition and more adaptive robotics, which will inform the next few years of work with scientists in field environments from Costa Rica to Alaska. This presentation will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the robotics community, as well as those in the fields of human factors, artificial intelligence, and the social sciences. Bio: Dr. Brittany Duncan is the Ross McCollum Associate Professor of Computing and Director of the NIMBUS lab at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her research is at the nexus of behavior-based robotics, human factors, and unmanned vehicles; specifically she is focused on how humans can more naturally interact with robots, individually or as part of ad hoc teams, in field-based domains such as agricultural, disaster response, and engineering applications. She is a PI on a NSF Early Faculty Career Award (CAREER), a PI on two NSF National Robotics Initiative (NRI) grants, and was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2010. Dr. Duncan received a Ph.D. From Texas A&M University and B.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. For more information, please see: cse.unl.edu/~bduncan<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcse.unl.ed…> or nimbus.unl.edu<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnimbus.unl…>.

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Robotics Seminar 10/25: V Nguyen (Hello Robot)
by Fitter, Naomi 22 Oct '24

22 Oct '24

Roboticists, This week, we're having a visit from Dr. V Nguyen (an occupational therapist embedded within Hello Robot, maker of the Stretch robot, one of the most practical mobile manipulators to date) for our Friday seminar. There will be a live robot demo! As a reminder, everyone is expected to come to the seminar. We’ve got a strict no-device policy. We also have, as always, coffee and coffee cake. For the fall, we still have Covell Hall 221 as our seminar location, with the usual timing of 10am Fridays. Please plan to head there each Friday at 10am. Looking forward to the seminar! See you there. Cheers, Naomi ________________________________________________ Empowering Independence & Enhancing Quality of Life with the Stretch Mobile Manipulator V Nguyen, OT Clinical Research Lead at Hello Robot Abstract: V, an occupational therapist (OT) from Hello Robot, will present on the innovative applications of assistive robotics in enabling independence and quality of life for individuals with motor and cognitive impairments. This talk will feature a live demonstration of Stretch, a cutting-edge mobile manipulator, designed to support people with and without disabilities in their daily activities. This is an interactive presentation and relatable to real-world contexts, such as providing the audience an opportunity to use a customizable web-interface to operate Stretch in to perform a task. Bio: V is an Occupational Therapy (OT) Clinical Research Lead at Hello Robot, dedicated to empowering individuals and advancing assistive robotics. V promotes the use of Stretch, a robotic platform, to enhance accessibility in healthcare, community resources, and technology, particularly for underserved and rural populations. Her research focuses on leveraging robots to support people with diverse abilities across all life stages. V investigates how robots can assist individuals with motor impairments in daily activities and explores ways older adults with neurocognitive disorders can use robots for cognitive support and safety management. Through innovative research and a commitment to empowering individuals and their communities, she continues to make significant contributions to occupational therapy and assistive robotics.

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