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Events for September 19, 2013
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The iCub project: a common open source platform for robotics research
Thu, Sep 19, 2013 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Giorgio Metta, Italian Institute of Technology
Talk Title: The iCub project: a common open source platform for robotics research
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: I will present the iCub humanoid, a robotic platform designed for research in embodied cognition. At 104 cm tall, the iCub has the size of a three and half years old child. It can crawl on all fours and sit up to manipulate objects. Its hands have been designed to support sophisticate manipulation skills. The iCub is distributed as Open Source following the GPL/FDL licenses and can now count on a worldwide community of enthusiastic developers. The entire design is available for download from the project homepage and repository (http://www.iCub.org). About 25 robots have been built so far which are available in laboratories in Europe, US, and soon in Japan. It is one of the few platforms in the world with a sensitive full-body skin to deal with the physical interaction with the environment including possible people.
SPECIAL NOTE: The iCub robot will be available for hands-on experience in RTH 422 from 9am to 3pm.
Biography: The iCub stance on cognition posits that manipulation plays a fundamental role in the development of cognitive capability [1-4]. As many of these basic skills are not ready-made at birth, but developed during ontogenesis [5], we aim at testing and developing this paradigm through the creation of a child-like humanoid robot: i.e. the iCub. This "baby" robot is meant to act in cognitive scenarios, performing tasks useful for learning while interacting with the environment and humans. The small (104cm tall), compact size (approximately 22kg and fitting within the volume of a child) and high number (53) of degrees of freedom combined with the Open Source approach distinguish RobotCub from other humanoid robotics projects developed worldwide.
References:
[1] L. Fadiga, L. Craighero, and E. Olivier, "Human motor cortex excitability during the perception of others' action," Current Biology, vol. 14 pp. 331-333, 2005.
[2] L. Fadiga, L. Craighero, G. Buccino, and G. Rizzolatti, "Speech listening specifically modulates the excitability of tongue muscles: a TMS study," European Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 15, pp. 399-402, 2002.
[3] G. Rizzolatti and L. Fadiga, "Grasping objects and grasping action meanings: the dual role of monkey rostroventral premotor cortex (area F5)," in Sensory Guidance of Movement, Novartis Foundation Symposium, G. R. Bock and J. A. Goode, Eds. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1998, pp. 81-103.
[4] D. Vernon, G. Metta, and G. Sandini, "A Survey of Cognition and Cognitive Architectures: Implications for the Autonomous Development of Mental Capabilities in Computational Systems," IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, special issue on AMD, vol. 11, 2007.
[5] C. von Hofsten, "On the development of perception and action," in Handbook of Developmental Psychology, J. Valsiner and K. J. Connolly, Eds. London: Sage, 2003, pp. 114-140.
Host: Stefan Schaal
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 422
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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CS George A Bekey Distinguished Lecture: Professor Lydia Kavraki (Rice University)
Thu, Sep 19, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Lydia Kavraki, Rice University
Talk Title: From Robots to Biomolecules: Computing for the Physical World
Series: CS Keynote Series
Abstract: Over the last decade, the development of fast and reliable motion planning algorithms has deeply influenced many domains in robotics, such as industrial automation and autonomous exploration. Motion planning has also contributed to great advances in an array of unlikely fields, including graphics animation and computational structural biology.
This talk will first describe how sampling-based methods revolutionized motion planning in robotics. The presentation will quickly focus on recent algorithms that are particularly suitable for systems with complex dynamics. The talk will then introduce an integrative framework that allows the synthesis of motion plans from high-level specifications. The framework uses temporal logic and formal methods and establishes a tight link between classical motion planning in robotics and task planning in artificial intelligence. Although research initially began in the realm of robotics, the experience gained has led to algorithmic advances for analyzing the motion and function of proteins, the worker molecules of all cells. This talk will conclude by discussing robotics-inspired methods for computing the flexibility of proteins and large macromolecular complexes with the ultimate goals of deciphering molecular function and aiding the discovery of new therapeutics.
Biography: Lydia E. Kavraki is the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and Bioengineering at Rice University. She also holds an appointment at the Department of Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Kavraki received her B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Crete in Greece and her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Her research contributions are in physical algorithms and their applications in robotics (robot motion planning, hybrid systems, formal methods in robotics, assembly planning, micromanipulation, and flexible object manipulation), as well as in computational structural biology, translational bioinformatics, and biomedical informatics (modeling of proteins and biomolecular interactions, large-scale functional annotation of proteins, computer-assisted drug design, and systems biology).
Kavraki has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications and a co-author of the popular robotics textbook "Principles of Robot Motion" published by MIT Press. She is heavily involved in the development of The Open Motion Planning Library (OMPL), which is used in industry and in academic research in robotics and biomedicine. Kavraki is currently on the editorial board of the International Journal of Robotics Research, the ACM/IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, the Computer Science Review, and Big Data. She is also a member of the editorial advisory board of the Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics. Kavraki is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a Fellow of the World Technology Network (WTN). Kavraki was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies in 2012. She is also a member of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) since 2012.
Host: Gaurav Sukhatme
More Information: BEKEY_LECTURE_VERTICAL.pdf
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
