Abstract: Perception is the key to intelligence. It is the ability to perceive one's environment and any changes it undergoes that enables learning. Still, understanding which changes were caused by one's own actions is crucial for learning how to interact with the environment and for grasping the range of possible interactions. The precise yet diverse nature of dexterous manipulation showcases this connection between perception and action via the inherent association between tactile perception and manipulation actions. In this talk, I will talk about how my research has focused on exploring the connections between perception and action by focusing on tactile perception in the context of dexterous manipulation. I will guide you through the initial steps of extracting relevant signals from tactile systems, how to use these signals in feedback control loops and how to rely on modularity, hierarchy and prediction to scale to more complex manipulators.
Bio: Filipe Veiga was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working with Prof. Edward Adelson in the development and usage of GelSight fingertip sensors for improving the dexterous manipulation skills of robots. Prior to this position he obtained a PhD in Machine Learning and Robotics from the Technische Universitaet Darmstadt under the supervision of Prof. Jan Peters after he got his Master Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Tecnico under the supervision of Prof.Alexandre Bernardino and Prof.Jose Santos-Victor. Filipe is interested in exploring perception to develop intelligent systems. His research has focused on tactile perception in conjunction with modularity, hierarchy and biomimetic control approaches in order to improve the dexterous manipulation capabilities of robots.
This seminar will be streaming via Zoom at the link above but requires a passcode. To obtain the passcode for this event, please see the announcements on the college email lists or contact us.