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Hi all,
This week, we are excited to host Professor Nima Fazeli from the University of Michigan! Join us on Friday (10/7/2022) at 1 pm CT to learn about topics in contact-rich robotics!
Title: Deformable Object Representations and Tactile Control for Contact Rich Robotic Tool-Use
Abstract: The next generation of robotic systems will be in our homes and workplaces, working in highly unstructured environments and manipulating complex deformables objects. The success of these systems hinges on their ability to reason over the complex dynamics of these objects and carefully control their interactions using the sense of touch. To this end, first I’ll present our recent advances in multimodal neural implicit representations of deformable objects. These representations integrate sight and touch seamlessly to model object deformations and are uniquely well equipped to handle robotic sensing modalities. Second, I’ll present our recent progress on tactile control with high-resolution and highly deformable tactile sensors. Specifically, I’ll discuss our work leveraging the Soft Bubbles to gracefully manipulate tools where we handle high-dimensional tactile signatures and the complex dynamics introduced by the sensor compliance. I’ll end the talk on future directions in tactile controls and deformables and present some of the open challenges in these domains.
Bio: Nima Fazeli is an Assistant Professor of Robotics and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and the director of the Manipulation and Machine Intelligence (MMint) Lab. Prof. Fazeli’s primary research interest is enabling intelligent and dexterous robotic manipulation with emphasis on the tight integration of mechanics, perception, controls, learning, and planning. Prof. Fazeli received his PhD from MIT (2019) working with Prof. Alberto Rodriguez, where he also conducted his postdoctoral training. He received his MSc from the University of Maryland at College Park (2014) where he spent most of his time developing models of the human (and, on occasion, swine) arterial tree for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer diagnoses. His research has been supported by the Rohsenow Fellowship and featured in outlets such as The New York Times, CBS, CNN, and the BBC.
Location: We will meet only virtually. Please use the following zoom meeting information to join us:Join Zoom Meeting
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/84677224909?pwd=bHQ3bUZBaXlIWEliUkM4WmhhdDVOZz09 Meeting ID: 846 7722 4909Password: 961445For graduate students: Note that we will be taking attendance so that you can get credit for the graduate seminars course if approved by your department. Please contact the graduate office at your department for further details.Looking forward to seeing you on Friday!Negar Mehr, Guillermo Colin Navarro, Maulik Bhatt, Saurabh Gupta, John M. Hart, and Kris Hauser