Talk Overview
In future, when the robots will surround us, there will be a need for the robots to communicate with us as effectively as we humans do with each other through various means–among all, through movement. As humans, when we walk around, our movement profile can be indicative of our inner state of mind, our emotions and affinity towards others. To make the robots more acceptable to people, they should be able to non-verbally communicate with humans as well. For this goal, this talk discusses a recipe for designing verified walking styles in two-legged robots using tools from trajectory optimization. The generated gaits are then verified for specific labels through user studies with lay human viewers. Overall this work is a step in the direction of making robots execute context-aware movement behaviors.
When: Friday, February 14, 1-2:00pm
Where: CDM Theater 708
Who: Umer Huzaifa, Visiting Assistant Professor, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Now the colloquium talks are live-streamed and available on YouTube!
Speaker bio: Umer Huzaifa is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. His research interests are in making machines more expressive by generating variable behaviors in articulated robots, leveraging embodied movement analysis and practice in this pursuit. He completed his M.S. in mechanical engineering from UIUC and B.S. in electrical engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in 2016 and 2012, respectively. He was a finalist for the Best Poster Award at the 6th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2016). He is also a recipient of the Mavis Future Faculty Fellowship (MF3) and Graduate Teaching Fellowship at UIUC.