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Events for February 28, 2022
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ECE Seminar: Certifiable Outlier-Robust Geometric Perception: Robots that See through the Clutter with Confidence
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Heng Yang, Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT
Talk Title: Certifiable Outlier-Robust Geometric Perception: Robots that See through the Clutter with Confidence
Abstract: Geometric perception is the task of estimating geometric models (e.g., object pose and 3D structure) from sensor measurements and priors (e.g., point clouds and neural network detections). Geometric perception is a fundamental building block for robotics applications ranging from intelligent transportation to space autonomy. The ubiquitous existence of outliers -measurements that tell no or little information about the models to be estimated- makes it theoretically intractable to perform estimation with guaranteed optimality. Despite this theoretical intractability, safety-critical robotics applications still demand trustworthiness and performance guarantees on perception algorithms. In this talk, I present certifiable outlier-robust geometric perception, a new paradigm to design tractable algorithms that enjoy rigorous performance guarantees, i.e., they return an optimal estimate with a certificate of optimality for a majority of problem instances, but declare failure and provide a measure of suboptimality for worst-case instances. Particularly, I present two general-purpose algorithms in the certifiable perception toolbox: (i) an estimator that uses graph theory to prune gross outliers and leverages graduated non-convexity to compute the optimal model estimate with high probability of success, and (ii) a certifier that employs sparse semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation and a novel SDP solver to endow the estimator with an optimality certificate or escape local minima otherwise. The estimator is fast and robust against up to 99% random outliers in practical perception applications, and the certifier can compute high-accuracy optimality certificates for large-scale problems beyond the reach of existing SDP solvers. I showcase certifiable outlier-robust perception on robotics applications such as scan matching, satellite pose estimation, and vehicle pose and shape estimation. I conclude by remarking three opportunities arising from certifiable perception: to speedup online global optimization by offline learning from data; to enable safe learning-based perception by bridging certifiable estimation with deep representation learning; and to couple and unify perception with action towards trustworthy autonomy.
Biography: Heng Yang is a final-year Ph.D. candidate in the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), working with Prof. Luca Carlone. He holds a B.S. degree from Tsinghua University and an S.M. degree from MIT, both in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include large-scale convex optimization, semidefinite relaxation, robust estimation, and machine learning, applied to robotics and trustworthy autonomy. His work includes developing certifiable outlier-robust machine perception algorithms, large-scale semidefinite programming solvers, and self-supervised geometric perception frameworks. Heng Yang is a recipient of the Best Paper Award in Robot Vision at the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), a Best Paper Award Honorable Mention from the 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), and a Best Paper Award Finalist at the 2021 Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference. He is a Class of 2021 RSS Pioneer.
Host: Dr. Keith Chugg, chugg@usc.edu
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/91553052387?pwd=V0NqTFNJMlBNZkxWVnVIQmYrVWtVQT09Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/91553052387?pwd=V0NqTFNJMlBNZkxWVnVIQmYrVWtVQT09
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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iRobot: Permission to Fail Panel
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
The panel is an open and honest discussion of the STEM journey. Engineers will share their own path, including the failures, imposter syndrome and other obstacles in their way. They offer their own tips and tricks for academic and mental health.
There will be a Watch Party in Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) 526 from 5:00-6:00p.m. followed by an open discussion from 6:00-6:15p.m. or you can attend via Zoom with the following Meeting ID: 945 4779 3476 and Password: 787411.
To RSVP, please complete the following form by Monday, February 28th, 2022. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8_7QingoidOj5mhkPWlzlNujbJxR7IgMR0tb-GI4cRfLoMw/viewform
We hope to see you there!
More Information: PermissionToFailFlyer2022-USC.pdf
Location: 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs
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Discovering Your Potential: A Conversation with Discovery's Former Tech Interns (Virtual) Monday, February 28, 2022
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Join us to hear from Discovery DTC's Campus Ambassadors about their experiences as interns, why they are returning to Discovery, the types of
projects you could be working on, ask questions, and more!
As the pure technology arm of Discovery Inc., we work at the intersection of technology, entertainment, and everyday utility, continuously leveraging technology to create immersive viewing and interactive experiences for millions of fans around the globe.
Link: https://discovery.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pabXqkHEREyiP9irhc2IEg
External employer-hosted events and activities are not affiliated with the USC Viterbi Career Connections Office. They are posted on Viterbi Career Connections because they may be of interest to members of the Viterbi community. Inclusion of any activity does not indicate USC sponsorship or endorsement of that activity or event. It is the participant's responsibility to apply due diligence, exercise caution when participating, and report concerns to vcareers@usc.eduLocation: Virtual. Link in the event description.
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections
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PhD Defense - Shao-Hua Sun
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
University Calendar
PhD Candidate: Shao-Hua Sun
Time: 2/28 (Mon) 3:30pm PST
Venue: Online (zoom link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/2133002395)
Committee members: Prof. Joseph J. Lim (Chair), Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme, Prof. Stefanos Nikolaidis, Prof. Quan Nguyen (AME dept)
Title: Program-Guided Framework for Interpreting and Acquiring Complex Skills with Learning Robots
Abstract: Recent development in artificial intelligence and machine learning has remarkably advanced machines' ability to understand images and videos, comprehend natural languages and speech, and outperform human experts in complex games. However, building intelligent robots that can physically interact with their surroundings as well as learn to operate in unstructured environments, manipulate unknown objects, and acquire novel skills - to free humans from tedious or dangerous manual work- remains challenging. The focus of my research is to develop a robot learning framework that enables robots to acquire long-horizon and complex skills with hierarchical structures, such as furniture assembly and cooking. Specifically, I aim to devise a robot learning framework which is: (1) interpretable: by decoupling interpreting skill specifications (e.g. demonstrations, reward functions) and executing skills, (2) programmatic: by generalizing from simple instances to complex instances without additional learning, (3) hierarchical: by operating on a proper level of abstraction that enables human users to interpret high-level plans of robots allows for composing primitive skills to solve long-horizon tasks, and (4) modular: by being equipped with modules specialized in different functions (e.g. perception, action) which collaborate, allowing for better generalization. This dissertation discusses a series of research projects toward building such an interpretable, programmatic, hierarchical, and modular robot learning framework.
WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/2133002395
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Lizsl De Leon
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iRobot: Permission to Fail Panel
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Student Activity
The panel is an open and honest discussion of the STEM journey. Engineers will share their own path, including the failures, imposter syndrome and other obstacles in their way. They offer their own tips and tricks for academic and mental health.
There will be a Watch Party in Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) 526 from 5:00-6:00p.m. followed by an open discussion from 6:00-6:15p.m. or you can attend via Zoom with the following Meeting ID: 945 4779 3476 and Password: 787411.
To RSVP, please complete the following form by Monday, February 28th, 2022. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe8_7QingoidOj5mhkPWlzlNujbJxR7IgMR0tb-GI4cRfLoMw/viewform
We hope to see you there!
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 526
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Undergraduate Programs
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ACM - Rubber Ducky Debugging
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Workshops & Infosessions
What is rubber duck debugging? Good question! Rubber duck debugging is a method to find bugs in your code where you explain your code aloud - to someone else, or to a rubber duck. Sometimes, talking through your code in words can help you find your mistakes.
Come learn a little more about rubber duck debugging with ACM! We will have a short presentation to give you a quick overview. Then, this event will be a crafty one where you can decorate your very own rubber duck to take home and debug with. We will have colorful ducks and a variety of paint, fabric, and glitter!
This is a great opportunity for you to hang out with other ACM members at one of the first in-person events of the semester!
Location: SLH 100
RSVP: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-tjqWcyoVgHVtwd2TIs4u9-qZBCq8-c8utGVjRS9utZ0kxA/viewform?usp=sf_link
Location: 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Association for Computing Machinery
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Rubber Ducky Debugging
Mon, Feb 28, 2022 @ 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Workshops & Infosessions
What's rubber duck debugging? Good question! Rubber duck debugging is a method to find bugs in your code where you explain your code aloud - to someone else, or to a rubber duck. Sometimes, talking through your code in words can help you find your mistakes.
Come learn a little more about rubber duck debugging with ACM! We will have a short presentation to give you a quick overview. Then, this event will be a crafty one where you can decorate your very own rubber duck to take home and debug with. We will have colorful ducks and a variety of paint, fabric, and glitter!
This is a great opportunity for you to hang out with other ACM members at one of the first in-person events of the semester!
RSVP: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-tjqWcyoVgHVtwd2TIs4u9-qZBCq8-c8utGVjRS9utZ0kxA/viewform?usp=sf_linkLocation: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: ACM
