Select a calendar:
Filter September Events by Event Type:
SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for September 13, 2019
-
Grammar TutoringFri, Sep 13, 2019 @ 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Need help refining your grammar for academic or professional writing? The Engineering Writing Program is providing free individual grammar help to all Viterbi graduate and undergraduate students! Bring your writing and sign up for help from a Writing Professor here: bit.ly/grammaratUSC!
Questions? Email Prof. Choi at helenhch@usc.edu.
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 106
Audiences: Graduate and Undergraduate Students
Contact: Helen Choi
-
Ph.D. Dissertation Defense
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 @ 01:00 PM - 02:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Pradeep Rajendran, AME Ph.D. candidate
Talk Title: Speeding Up Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Robots Operating in Complex Environments
Abstract: Advances in sensing and computing hardware have physically equipped robots to operate in complex environments. In many real-world settings, we desire robots to operate at a high-level of autonomy to reduce operating costs and manpower requirements. A high-level of autonomy can be achieved only when robots are able to plan missions and tasks themselves. Trajectory planning is a fundamental building block required to support high-level decision making in robots.
Trajectory planning for autonomous robots operating in complex environments is a challenging problem. The complexity of trajectory planning problems stems from the dimensionality of robot's state space, the complexity of the robot kinematic and dynamic model, the nature of environmental constraints (e.g., obstacles), task constraints (e.g., rules), the optimization objective function, and the planning-time requirements needed for deployment in the real world. Depending on the complexity, these problems can be solved by existing methods to produce feasible trajectories. But, in many practical applications (e.g., automated package delivery), computing a feasible trajectory alone is not enough. The quality of the computed trajectory is also important. However, in many cases, computing truly optimal trajectories is computationally intensive and thus, very time-consuming. As a result, existing methods do not satisfy planning-time constraints required by the application while maintaining optimality. We need a method that produces high-quality trajectories and at the same time produce those trajectories quickly. Anytime methods handle exactly this problem. However, these methods produce high-quality trajectories quickly only when good heuristics are used.
This work focuses on techniques for anytime algorithms that speed up trajectory planning for autonomous robots in complex environments. It is anticipated that the methodology presented in this work will be applicable to mobile robots operating in an outdoor setting such as uneven terrain, water bodies. In such settings, the speed-up techniques will allow the robot to quickly react to the environment and perform tasks safely. Depending on the application domain, this will also serve as an enabling technology for more advanced services. Many industrial processes are currently use high degree-of-freedom manipulators that are manually programmed by a human operator. Methods presented in this work can greatly simplify workflows related to manipulators and improve manufacturing throughput.
Host: SK Gupta
Location: Robert Glen Rapp Engineering Research Building (RRB) - Laufer Library
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: SK Gupta
-
Ming Hsieh Institute Seminar Series on Integrated Systems
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Hai Li, Associate Professor, Duke University
Talk Title: Highly Efficient Neuromorphic Computing Systems with Emerging Nonvolatile Memories
Host: Profs. Hossein Hashemi, Mike Chen, Dina El-Damak, and Mahta Moghaddam
More Information: MHI Seminar Series IS - Hai Li.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jenny Lin
