Videos footage from RuCCS Colloquium Talks can be found on the RuCCS YouTube Channel. For all other events, please check the sponsor's website for more detail.

To filter by event category, click on the event category link in the table below or use the menu on the right.

List of Past Events

Progress in Algorithmic Motion Planning and Opportunities at the Intersection with Perceptual Science

Dr. Kostas Bekris

Monday, November 26, 2012, 12:00pm - 07:00pm

Rutgers University, Department of Computer Science

Copy to My Calendar (iCal) Download as iCal file

Abstract:
The area of motion planning studies algorithms that return actions that must be executed to accomplish a physical task. It has applications in robotics, simulation, cyber-physical systems and human-centered computing. This talk will first review recent progress in the field, specifically regarding (a) the efficient computation of asymptotically (near-)optimal paths, (b) dealing with systems that exhibit non-trivial dynamics, (c) and providing efficient algorithms for multi-agent path-finding. It will then progress to view these contributions under the light of recent efforts, such as the National Robotic Initiative, which emphasize the importance of bringing robots and people together to solve complex tasks. The talk will propose a framework for reasoning about such interactions in an algorithmic manner, utilizing ideas from game theory. This direction provides research opportunities that lie at the intersection of perceptual science and motion planning, such as utilizing and analyzing perceptual data in order to identify the intent of humans by robots that will assist in the completion of a common task.

Background readings:

Books on motion planning:
    - "Principles of Robot Motion, Theory, Algorithms, and Implementations" by
        Howie Choset, Kevin M. Lynch, Seth Hutchinson, George Kantor, Wolfram Burgard, Lydia E. Kavraki and Sebastian Thrun
        http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=E4EC74C1-3479-43A0-9A0F-A5AD6B73F4AA&ttype=2&tid=10340http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=E4EC74C1-3479-43A0-9A0F-A5AD6B73F4AA&ttype=2&tid=10340">http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=E4EC74C1-3479-43A0-9A0F-A5AD6B73F4AA&ttype=2&tid=10340 />     - "Planning Algorithms" (open-access book) by
        Steve LaValle 
        http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/">http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/

Related Papers:
    http://www.cse.unr.edu/robotics/pracsys/sites/cse.unr.edu.robotics.pracsys/files/sparse_roadmap_spanner.pdf">http://www.cse.unr.edu/robotics/pracsys/sites/cse.unr.edu.robotics.pracsys/files/sparse_roadmap_spanner.pdf
    http://www.cse.unr.edu/robotics/pracsys/sites/cse.unr.edu.robotics.pracsys/files/asynchronous_coordination_0.pdf">http://www.cse.unr.edu/robotics/pracsys/sites/cse.unr.edu.robotics.pracsys/files/asynchronous_coordination_0.pdf
    http://www.cse.unr.edu/robotics/pracsys/sites/cse.unr.edu.robotics.pracsys/files/push_and_swap_iros.pdf">http://www.cse.unr.edu/robotics/pracsys/sites/cse.unr.edu.robotics.pracsys/files/push_and_swap_iros.pdf

Dr. Kostas Bekris