CS Events Monthly View

Computer Science Department Colloquium

How to Make, Sense, and Make Sense of Contact in Robotic Manipulation

 

Download as iCal file

Wednesday, March 04, 2020, 03:30pm

 
3_4_2020_MateiHeadshot_1.jpg

Speaker: Matei Ciocarlie, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering https://roam.me.columbia.edu/matei-ciocarlie

Bio

Matei Ciocarlie is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University. His current work focuses on robot motor control, mechanism and sensor design, planning and learning, all aiming to demonstrate complex motor skills such as dexterous manipulation. Matei completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in New York; before joining the faculty at Columbia, he was a Research Scientist and Group Manager at Willow Garage, Inc., a privately funded Silicon Valley robotics research lab, and then a Senior Research Scientist at Google, Inc. In recognition of his work, Matei has been awarded the Early Career Award by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, a Young Investigator Award by the Office of Naval Research, a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation, and a Sloan Research Fellowship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Location : Easton Hub Auditorium (Fiber Optics Building, Busch campus)

Event Type: Computer Science Department Colloquium

Abstract: Dexterous manipulation is still one of the key open problems for many new robotic applications, owing in great measure to the difficulty of dealing with transient contact. From an analytical standpoint, intermittent frictional contact (the essence of manipulation) is difficult to model, as it gives rise to non-convex problems with no known efficient solvers. Contact is also difficult to sense, particularly with sensors integrated in a mechanical package that must also be compact, highly articulated and appropriately actuated (i.e. a robot hand). Articulation and actuation present their own challenges: a dexterous hand comes with a high-dimensional posture space, difficult to design, actuate, and control. In this talk, I will present our work trying to address these challenges: analytical models of grasp stability (with realistic energy dissipation constraints), design and use of sensors (tactile and proprioceptive) for manipulation, and hand posture subspaces (for design optimization and teleoperation). These are stepping stones towards achieving versatile robotic manipulation, needed by applications as diverse as logistics, manufacturing, disaster response and space robots.

Organization

Joint CS and Mechanical Engineering Colloquium

Contact  CS Host: Kostas Bekris

Wednesday, March 4, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Social Hour Refreshments at 4:30 p.m.