- Robotics-seminar - Engineering Mailing Lists

Robotics Seminar 1/19: Bill Smart (OSU)
by Smart, William 18 Jan '24

18 Jan '24

Roboticists, By popular request, this Friday I’ll be talking about the mystery that is technical conferences, and how to get the most out of them. We’ll talk about why conferences are important to your career, give some practical advice about how to get the most out of them, and offer some tips about how to navigate the social elements of these often overwhelming events. If you’ve never been to a conference, come and learn about what they are. If you’ve been to many conferences, come and share your tips and advice. This will be an interactive event, and there will be coffee and cake, to better simulate the conference experience.* 10am, Rogers 230, 1/19. -- Bill *Not really, because our coffee is good, unlike most conference coffee.

1 0

Seminar 01/16 Dr. Nils Wilde (TU Delft)
by Rustagi, Pulkit Devinder 11 Jan '24

11 Jan '24

Hi All, Dr. Nils Wilde will be presenting his work on Preference Learning and Multi-Objective Planning for Autonomous Systems on Tuesday (Jan 16th) at 1:00 - 2:00 pm in Rogers 226 and via Zoom. Afterward, from 2:15-3:00 pm, there will be a student-postdoc Q&A session with Dr. Wilde in Rogers 237. See below for Dr. Wilde's abstract and bio. Hope that you can make it! Pulkit Rustagi --- Oregon State University, College of Engineering Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fengineeri…> Research Associate Candidate Seminar Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2024 Time: 1 pm Pacific Time In-person location: Rogers 226 Zoom link: https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/95307742594?pwd=cWdmUS91dU9VeDQ0SnVZMWJMcFhtZ…<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foregonsta…> Seminar Title: Preference Learning and Multi-Objective Planning for Autonomous Systems Speaker: Dr. Nils Wilde, https://sites.google.com/view/nwilde/home<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.goo…> Seminar information provided by the speaker: Abstract: The deployment of autonomous robots in real-world settings often requires planning and decision making under multiple competing objectives. Which trade-off between objectives is the most adequate often depends on the respective end-user. Thus, a central problem is how inexperienced users can adapt autonomous systems to their preferences. In this talk we focus on two parts of the problem. First, we study human-in-the-loop learning frameworks that allow users to customize robot behaviour to their preferences through a sequence of simple interactions. One such interaction mode is choice feedback where users choose between two presented options, allowing for effectively learning user preference within few iterations. In the second part, we study the challenge of exploring optimal trade-offs for multi-objective robot planning problems. We establish fundamental theoretical properties that allow for efficient algorithm design. Applications of the presented work include high-level motion planning in human-centered environments, manipulation in servicing tasks, environmental monitoring, vehicle routing, and multi-robot pickup and delivery. Speaker Bio: Nils Wilde is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Autonomous Multi-Robots Lab at TU Delft, working with Javier Alonso-Mora. Until 2021 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Autonomous Systems Lab at the University of Waterloo where he also did his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering under the co-supervision of Dana Kulić and Stephen L. Smith from 2016 to 2020. Before that he completed his BSc. and MSc. degrees at the Technical University Berlin in 2012 and 2016, respectively. Nils' research combines robot motion planning, multi-robot coordination, and human-robot interaction (HRI), developing algorithmic frameworks on the intersection of control, learning and optimization.

1 0

Robotics Seminar 1/12: Peter Asaro (The New School)
by Smart, William 11 Jan '24

11 Jan '24

Roboticists, A quick reminder to join us tomorrow for the first robotics seminar of the new year. Peter Asaro will be talking about deceptive robots, and his work with the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Rogers 230, 10am, coffee and cake. cheers -- Bill AI For Deception, Manipulation & Coercion: Towards a Theory and Regulation Peter Asaro, The New School Abstract: This talk will provide an overview of my recent work on deception, manipulation and coercion by AI and artificial agents. I start from a review of the literature in analytic philosophy on coercion, and its related concepts of manipulation and deception. I also consider mass media theories of propaganda, advertising and persuasion, and well as HRI and HCI theories of “nudging” and their relation to the ethics of artificial agents influencing the behavior of human agents. I then consider how these concepts are challenged by emerging AI and robotics technologies, including targeted marketing, Large Language Models, companion chatbots and social robots. From this I aim to develop a theoretical framework for how these concepts might apply to AI and artificial agents as they become increasingly sophisticated and capable. The goal of this framework is to inform policy and the regulation of these systems so as to assess and avoid the most the most harmful risks posed by these systems as they become further integrated into society. I will also leave time to discuss my work in advocacy around robotics and AI, including the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and working with scientists and engineers to advance socially just and ethical technology. Bio: Professor Peter Asaro is a philosopher of science, technology and media. His work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, the ethical dimensions of algorithms and data, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world. His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of automation and autonomous technologies, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. He has written widely-cited papers on autonomous weapons from the perspective of just war theory and human rights, and the legal and moral issues raised by law enforcement robots and predictive policing. Prof. Asaro's research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, UAVs and drones, and autonomous vehicles. His research has been published in international peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, translated into French, German, Korean and Braille, and he is currently researching a book that interrogates the intersections between advanced robotics, and social and ethical issues. In 2009, Prof. Asaro co-founded the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) which has been advocating for an international ban on autonomous weapon systems, and which in 2012 joined a coalition of NGOs to form the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The Campaign has been successful in initiating discussions of autonomous weapons at the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), and seeks to advance those talks to treaty negotiations.

1 0

Robotics Seminar 1/12: Peter Asaro (The New School)
by Smart, William 08 Jan '24

08 Jan '24

Roboticists, Join us for the first robotics seminar of the new year. Peter Asaro, rescheduled from last term, will be talking about his work in deception, coercion, and nudging by artificial agents, including robots. He will also be talking about his policy work at the United Nations and leadership in the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. We’re back in Rogers 230 this term and, of course, there will be coffee and cake. cheers -- Bill AI For Deception, Manipulation & Coercion: Towards a Theory and Regulation Peter Asaro, The New School Abstract: This talk will provide an overview of my recent work on deception, manipulation and coercion by AI and artificial agents. I start from a review of the literature in analytic philosophy on coercion, and its related concepts of manipulation and deception. I also consider mass media theories of propaganda, advertising and persuasion, and well as HRI and HCI theories of “nudging” and their relation to the ethics of artificial agents influencing the behavior of human agents. I then consider how these concepts are challenged by emerging AI and robotics technologies, including targeted marketing, Large Language Models, companion chatbots and social robots. From this I aim to develop a theoretical framework for how these concepts might apply to AI and artificial agents as they become increasingly sophisticated and capable. The goal of this framework is to inform policy and the regulation of these systems so as to assess and avoid the most the most harmful risks posed by these systems as they become further integrated into society. I will also leave time to discuss my work in advocacy around robotics and AI, including the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and working with scientists and engineers to advance socially just and ethical technology. Bio: Professor Peter Asaro is a philosopher of science, technology and media. His work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, the ethical dimensions of algorithms and data, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world. His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of automation and autonomous technologies, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. He has written widely-cited papers on autonomous weapons from the perspective of just war theory and human rights, and the legal and moral issues raised by law enforcement robots and predictive policing. Prof. Asaro's research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, UAVs and drones, and autonomous vehicles. His research has been published in international peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, translated into French, German, Korean and Braille, and he is currently researching a book that interrogates the intersections between advanced robotics, and social and ethical issues. In 2009, Prof. Asaro co-founded the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) which has been advocating for an international ban on autonomous weapon systems, and which in 2012 joined a coalition of NGOs to form the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The Campaign has been successful in initiating discussions of autonomous weapons at the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), and seeks to advance those talks to treaty negotiations.

1 0

Seminar 12/13 Dr. Kshitij Tiwari (Purdue University)
by Boehme, Noah 11 Dec '23

11 Dec '23

Hello all, Dr. Kshitij Tiwari will be presenting his work on Bio-inspiration this Wednesday (12/13) at noon in Rogers 226 and via Zoom. Afterwards, from 2:30-3:15 there will be a student Q&A session in Rogers 226. See below for Dr. Tiwari's abstract and bio. Please come if you can! * Noah Boehme Seminar Title: Bio-inspired Co-evolution of Bodies, Brains & Sensors for Mobile Robots- Insights from Nature Speaker: Dr. Kshitij Tiwari Seminar information provided by the speaker: Abstract: In this engaging 45-minutes seminar, we delve into the captivating realm of bio-inspired co-evolution of bodies, brains and sensors for mobile robots and how doing so can unveil novel capabilities for mobile robots to operate in harsh environments. Often the researchers look into such avenues of research independently and bio-inspiration is typically employed for robot design but the same can be extended to brains, bodies and sensors in unison. The challenge then is to develop learning algorithms that are flexible across various robot embodiments and sensing configurations while being robust to transfer from simulation to real world. Doing so, can have a significant impact in applications such as urban search and rescue or long-endurance outdoor missions. Speaker Bio: Dr. Tiwari is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Purdue University where he is specializing in perception and navigation for resource-constrained mobile robots and multi-agent systems, along with custom sensor fabrication. He earned his Ph.D. from JAIST, Japan in 2018, where he focused on environment monitoring using resource-constrained mobile robots. He also earned an MSc from the University of Edinburgh in 2014, and a BEng degree from the University of Hong Kong in 2013. As a Postdoctoral Fellow he has been focusing on building novel sensors such as bio-inspired whisker arrays to endow mobile robots with novel sensing abilities inspired by nature. Alongside this, he also is building perceptual algorithms for multimodal sensing to harness the powers of novel and conventional long and short range sensors to enhance the overall robustness of mobile robots employed in the field. As an advocate for innovative exploration, Dr. Tiwari's endeavors have unveiled new dimensions in tactile navigation, reimagining its potential beyond traditional confines. His research encompasses the amalgamation of cutting-edge technology and nature-inspired designs to revolutionize navigation strategies. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Dr. Tiwari is an avid contributor to the field through his personal website, www.kshitijtiwari.com<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kshiti…>, where he shares insights, research findings, and resources. He encourages intellectual discourse and welcomes collaboration in shaping the future of navigation. - Email: hi(a)kshitijtiwari.com<mailto:hi@kshitijtiwari.com> - Twitter: https://twitter.com/kshitijtiwari92<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.c…> - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/KshitijTiwari/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtu…> - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshitijtiwari92/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linke…> [https://st2.zoom.us/static/6.3.17679/image/new/ZoomLogo_110_25.png]<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fzoom.us%2F…> Join Zoom Meeting<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foregonsta…> Meeting URL: https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/93971679667?pwd=ZzlSSEhnSHUrc0t1c0hQc1NMNGV5U…<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foregonsta…> Password: 902363 Join by Telephone Call: US: +1 971 247 1195 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 301 715 8592 Meeting ID: 939 7167 9667 International numbers<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foregonsta…> Join by Polycom/Cisco/Other Room System Password: 902363 93971679667(a)zoomcrc.com Password: 902363

1 0

Robotics Seminar 12/8: Cindy Grimm (OSU)
by Smart, William 06 Dec '23

06 Dec '23

Roboticsts, Just a reminder to join us this Friday for the last seminar of the year that ties together robots and law as our own Dr, Cindy Grimm talks about her work helping draft guidance for the Canadian government to regulate AI and robots. Learn something about how the law works, drink coffee, and eat cake. cheers -- Bill AI, Robotics, and Civil Liability Cindy Grimm, Oregon State University Abstract: Exactly how should civil liability and tort law “think” about AI? Short answer: It's just another part of product development, with a few caveats. AI and robotics introduce additional risks over conventional approaches, and also makes discoverability very challenging for the plaintiff. Fundamentally, AI and robotics are an engineering trade-off: they’re more capable of handling a wider variety of changeable environments/inputs than traditional approaches, but that flexibility means it is also difficult to verify it will work “as expected”. It's probabilities, all the way down... Bio: Cindy Grimm works in the area of robotic grasping and manipulation for both industry and agriculture, as well as ethics, law and policy related to robotics. Her background is in Computer Graphics, Visualization, and Human-robot interaction. She received her PhD from Brown University in 1995 in the area of surface modeling, spent two years working at Microsoft Research on facial animation, then ten years as faculty in Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She is now at Oregon State University as a member of the Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute.

1 0

Robotics Seminar 12/8: Cindy Grimm (OSU)
by Smart, William 06 Dec '23

06 Dec '23

Roboticsts, Join us this Friday for a seminar that ties together robots and law as our own Dr, Cindy Grimm talks about her work helping draft guidance for the Canadian government to regulate AI and robots. Learn something about how the law works, drink coffee, and eat cake. Due to a re-re-schedule, this will be the last seminar of the year. Dr. Peter Asaro will come and talk early next term. cheers -- Bill AI, Robotics, and Civil Liability Cindy Grimm, Oregon State University Abstract: Exactly how should civil liability and tort law “think” about AI? Short answer: It's just another part of product development, with a few caveats. AI and robotics introduce additional risks over conventional approaches, and also makes discoverability very challenging for the plaintiff. Fundamentally, AI and robotics are an engineering trade-off: they’re more capable of handling a wider variety of changeable environments/inputs than traditional approaches, but that flexibility means it is also difficult to verify it will work “as expected”. It's probabilities, all the way down... Bio: Cindy Grimm works in the area of robotic grasping and manipulation for both industry and agriculture, as well as ethics, law and policy related to robotics. Her background is in Computer Graphics, Visualization, and Human-robot interaction. She received her PhD from Brown University in 1995 in the area of surface modeling, spent two years working at Microsoft Research on facial animation, then ten years as faculty in Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She is now at Oregon State University as a member of the Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute.

1 0

Fw: AI Seminar : Dec 1
by Smart, William 29 Nov '23

29 Nov '23

A robot-themed AI seminar talk this Friday -- Bill ________________________________ From: Ai <ai-bounces(a)engr.oregonstate.edu> on behalf of Mangannavar, Rajesh Devaraddi <mangannr(a)oregonstate.edu> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2023 12:55 To: eecs-grads(a)engr.orst.edu <eecs-grads(a)engr.oregonstate.edu>; 'eecs-faculty(a)engr.oregonstate.edu' <eecs-faculty(a)engr.oregonstate.edu>; ai(a)engr.orst.edu <ai(a)engr.oregonstate.edu>; ai-seminar(a)engr.orst.edu <ai-seminar(a)engr.oregonstate.edu> Cc: Tadepalli, Prasad <prasad.tadepalli(a)oregonstate.edu> Subject: [Ai] AI Seminar : Dec 1 Dear all, Our next AI seminar is scheduled to be on December 1stth, 1-2 PM. It will be followed by a 30-minute Q&A session with the graduate students. Location: KEC 1001 Zoom link: https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/98684050301?pwd=ZzhianQxUFBPUmdYVWJKOFhaVURCQ…<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foregonsta…> Best Practices for Robot Death Heather Knight Assistant Professor Computer Science Oregon State University Abstract: Have you ever been sad after losing a pet, lost all data on your phone, or spilled coffee on your laptop? Imagine how a robot owner might feel after losing their companion robot, or seeing its memory and capability erased. We often replace phones after mere years of use, robot software goes out of date much faster than a dog or cat's lifespan, yet there are few social considerations for the grief a human might feel in losing software support for a robot system, or over robot hardwares for which no new parts are constructed. Yet, just like living systems, impermanence in technological systems is a given. This talk considers ways in which perspectives from Social Robotics — a field that leverages anthropomorphism, i.e., the ways in which humans automatically imbue humanlike characteristics to non-human things — can inform future social considerations and best practices for Robot Death. For example, social structures and legal mechanisms that take human-robot bonding into account by compassionately delivering news, and/or validating naturally existing sadness post-machine decline. Drawing from my personal experience having a Nao robot stolen out of my car in Corvallis, OR, from analyses of robot funerals after Starship Robots are hit by cars or trains, and international examples of ceremonies conducted for lost machines, this talk acknowledges that digital lives can also experience existential 1's and 0's. What can Social Robotics as a field teach us about compassionately handling robot and machine death? Moreover, how might robots and machines help us to compassionately navigate impermanence and suffering in our own lives? We finish with a discussion of opportunities for robot-facilitated mindfulness practices, including "maranasati," which means mindfulness of death and has surprising benefits to one's mental health. Speaker Bio: Dr. Heather Knight is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University, and directs the CHARISMA Robotics Lab, advising students in Robotics, EECS, AI, and MIME. Her students investigate multi-robot expressive motion, human-robot interactive communication, interfaces for human-in-the-loop robot control, and frequently use entertainment methods to bootstrap the development of everyday social robots. Past projects include Cyberflora, a robot flower garden installation at the Smithsonian/Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, Silicon Comedy, an online learning system for interactive robot comedy featured on TED.com, and This Too Shall Pass, a music video featuring a two-floor Rube Goldberg Machine that won a British Video Music Award. Her academic background included a postdoc at Stanford University exploring minimal robots and autonomous car interfaces, a Robotics Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University on Expressive Motion for Low Degree-of-Freedom Robots, and M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she developed a sensate skin for a robot teddy bear at the MIT Media Lab. Outside of academia, she has developed robotics and instrumentation at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and sensor and field applications as an early employee of Aldebaran Robotics, the developers of the Nao and Pepper robots (since acquired by Softbank). Please watch this space for future AI Seminars : https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/EECS/research/AI<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fengineeri…> Rajesh Mangannavar, Graduate Student Oregon State University ---- AI Seminar Important Reminders: -> For graduate students in the AI program, attendance is strongly encouraged

1 0

No Robotics Seminar this week
by Smart, William 29 Nov '23

29 Nov '23

Roboticists, Sorry for the late notice, but we've had a bit of a change of schedule. There will be no robotics seminar this week. Prof. Grimm will be speaking next week about her work with a bunch of Canadian lawyers to help the Canadian government draft better laws around robotics. And, the following week, we'll have a rescheduled talk by Peter Asaro. Announcements to follow. If you're craving a robot-focused talk on Friday, Prof Knight is giving a talk about Best Practices for Robot Death for the AI seminar in KEC at 1pm. cheers -- Bill

1 0

Robotics Seminar 11/17: Brian Flynn (Mass Lowell)
by Smart, William 16 Nov '23

16 Nov '23

Roboticists, A reminder to join us tomorrow for another Robotics Seminar, complete with coffee and cake. KEC 1001, 10am, as usual -- 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.

1 0