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Events for April 02, 2020
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ECE Seminar: Safe and Data-efficient Learning for Robotics
Thu, Apr 02, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Somil Bansal, PhD Candidate, Department of EECS, University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: Safe and Data-efficient Learning for Robotics
Abstract: Machine learning has led to tremendous progress in domains such as computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing. Fueled by these advances, machine learning approaches are now being explored to develop intelligent physical systems that can operate reliably in unpredictable environments. These include not only robotic systems such as autonomous cars and drones, but also large-scale cyberphysical systems such as transportation and energy systems. However, learning techniques widely used today are extremely data inefficient, making it challenging to apply them to real-world physical systems. Moreover, they lack the necessary mathematical framework to provide guarantees on correctness, causing safety concerns as data-driven physical systems are integrated in our society. We combine tools from robust optimal control theory with machine learning and computer vision to develop data-efficient and provably safe learning-based control algorithms for physical robotic systems. In particular, we design modular architectures that combine system dynamics models with modern learning-based perception approaches to solve challenging perception and control problems in a priori unknown environments in a data-efficient fashion. Moreover, due to their modularity, these architectures are amenable to simulation-to-real transfer, and can be used for different robotic systems without any retraining. Crucially, we use models not only for faster learning, but also to monitor and recognize the learning system's failures, and to provide online corrective safe actions when necessary. This allows us to provide safety assurances for learning-enabled systems in unknown and human-centric environments, which has remained a challenge to date.
Biography: Somil Bansal completed his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2012, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley in 2014. Since 2015, he is pursuing a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, under the supervision of Prof. Claire Tomlin in the Hybrid Systems Laboratory. His research interests are in exploring how machine learning tools can be combined with the control theoretic frameworks to develop data-efficient and safe learning-based control algorithms for physical robotic systems, especially when the system is operating in an uncertain environment. During his PhD, he has also worked closely with companies like Skydio, Google, Boeing, as well as NASA Ames. Somil has received several awards, most notably the outstanding graduate student instructor award at UC Berkeley and the academic excellence award at IIT Kanpur.
Host: Ashutosh Nayyar, ashutosn@usc.edu
Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/811254572WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/811254572
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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Seminar will be exclusively online (no in-room presentation) - CS Colloquium: Tegan Brennan (University of California, Santa Barbara) - Software Side Channels
Thu, Apr 02, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Tegan Brennan, University of California, Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Software Side Channels
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: Side channels in software are a class of information leaks where non-functional side effects of software systems (such as execution time, memory usage or power consumption) can leak information about sensitive data. In this talk, I present my research on a new class of side-channel vulnerabilities: JIT-induced side channels. In contrast to side channels introduced at the source code level, JIT-induced side channels arise at runtime due to the behavior of just-in-time (JIT) compilation. I show the existence of this class of side channels across multiple runtimes, and I demonstrate JIT-induced timing channels in large, open source projects large enough in magnitude to be detected over the public internet. I also present an automated approach to inducing this type of side channel in programs. In evaluating my automated technique, I show that programs classified as side-channel free by four state-of-the-art side channel analysis tools are, in fact, vulnerable to JIT-induced side channels. Finally, I discuss my contributions towards scalable quantification of side-channel vulnerabilities through a caching framework for model-counting queries.
This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium
Biography: Tegan Brennan is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research is in software engineering, formal verification and computer security. She has worked extensively on side-channel vulnerabilities in software. Tegan is a recipient of an IGERT Fellowship in Network Science, an NCWIT Collegiate Award Honorable Mention in 2018 and an invited participant of the 2019 Rising Stars workshop. She has also interned twice with Amazon's Automated Reasoning Group.
Host: Chao Wang
Location: Seminar will be exclusively online (no in-room presentation)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
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Building Software for Social Impact - Product Design Workshop
Thu, Apr 02, 2020 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Workshops & Infosessions
Learn the phases of software development starting with ideation! We will walk participants through a problem presented to us by a non-profit and how we've designed and built a software solution.
This event will be hosted by Jessica Au and Bryan Huang on behalf of the student organization: Code the Change.
Learn more about Code the Change!
Code the Change is an organization dedicated to building software for nonprofits. We are a team of developers, designers, and product managers; our unique skill sets allow us to build fully functional projects throughout the course of a school year.
Website: http://www.ctcusc.com/
Contact: ctcusc@gmail.com
The Zoom meeting link will be sent to CS undergraduates directly by email.Location: Online - Zoom
WebCast Link: Sent Directly to CS Undergraduates
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Ryan Rozan
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Undergraduate Admission Virtual Information Session
Thu, Apr 02, 2020 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Undergraduate Admission
Workshops & Infosessions
Our virtual information session is a live presentation from a USC Viterbi admission counselor designed for prospective first-year students and their family members to learn more about the USC Viterbi undergraduate experience.Our session will cover an overview of our undergraduate engineering programs, the application process, and more on student life.Guests will be able to ask questions and engage in further discussion toward the end of the session.
Please register here!Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Admission
