Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Pawel Romanczuk (Science of Intelligence), “Introduction to Complexity Science: Part II”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Pawel Romanczuk holds a professorship on Complexity Research in Adaptive Systems at HU. For SCIoI, he works at the interface of applied mathematics, theoretical physics, and behavioral biology. He focuses on collective behavior of organismic systems. His research bridges analytical and synthetic sciences to study self-organization, evolutionary adaptations, and functional dynamical behavior. This talk will

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Sylvain Calinon (IDIAP, EPFL), “Frugal Learning of Manipulation Skills in Robotics”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Many applications in robotics would benefit from robots being able to learn manipulation skills from only few demonstrations or trials. This contrasts with the ongoing trend in machine learning of constantly increasing the amount of data required to learn tasks. The main challenge of acquiring manipulation skills from limited training data is to find inductive

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Mohsen Raoufi (Science of Intelligence), “Crash Course on Network Science”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Mohsen is a doctoral researcher at SCIoI, working on Project 27, Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs in Collective Estimation. His research explores the role of networks in shaping collective opinion dynamics. In this lecture, he will provide an overview of network science with a focus on its applications in collective robotics. He will cover basic topics in graph

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Justin Werfel (Harvard University), “Bio-Inspired Intelligence and Robotics”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Justin Werfel is a senior research scientist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where he works on topics in complex and emergent systems, including swarm robotics, termite behavior, engineered molecular nanosystems, and evolutionary theory. He leads the Designing Emergence Laboratory, and works closely with a number of other collaborating labs. This talk will take place as

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Majid Khadiv (TU München), “Optimal Control and Learning for Contact-Rich Robotics”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

The past few years have witnessed significant progress in the field of legged locomotion and manipulation. This is mainly due to the availability of high-performance hardware as well as development of algorithms that scale to high-dimensional, hybrid and under-actuated systems. In this talk, I will present my recent research efforts, mainly on the algorithmic side,

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Mario Di Bernardo (University of Naples Federico II), “Control of Complex Multi-Agent Systems”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Mario di Bernardo is Professor of Automatic Control at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy and Visiting Professor of Nonlinear Systems and Control at the University of Bristol, U.K. He currently serves as Deputy pro-Vice Chancellor for Internationalization at the University of Naples and coordinates the research area and PhD program on Modeling and

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Sabine Hauert (University of Bristol), “Breaking Swarm Stereotypes: Scalability, Adaptability, and Robustness in Real-World Applications”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Sabine Hauert is Professor of Swarm Engineering at the University of Bristol in the UK. Her research focuses on making swarms for people, and across scales, from nanorobots for cancer treatment, to larger robots for environmental monitoring, or logistics. Before joining the University of Bristol, Sabine engineered swarms of nanoparticles for cancer treatment at MIT,

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Carlo Pinciroli (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), “Simulation Platforms and sim2real Gap”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Carlo Pinciroli is an Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator of the Robotics Engineering department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), where he leads the NEST (Novel Engineering for Swarm Technologies) Lab. With additional appointments in WPI’s Artificial Intelligence Program, Computer Science, and Fire Protection Engineering, his research centers on swarm robotics. He is the creator of

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Oliver Kroemer (Carnegie Mellon University), “Modularity and Learning To Structure Robot Manipulation Skills”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Oliver Kroemer’s research focuses on developing algorithms and representations that enable robots to learn versatile manipulation skills over time. By equipping robots with the ability to acquire new skills and adapt manipulations to novel situations, his work opens up a wide range of potential applications—from assisting the elderly and maintaining parks and public spaces to

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Mary Ellen Foster (University of Glasgow), “Face-to-Face Conversation With Socially Intelligent Robots”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

When humans talk to each other face-to-face, they use their voices, faces, and bodies together in a rich, multimodal, continuous, interactive process. For a robot to participate fully in this sort of natural, face-to-face conversation in the real world, it must also be able not only to understand the social signals of its human partners,

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Rudolf Lioutikov (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie), “Versatile, Language Conditioned Robots”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

More info will follow soon. This talk will take place as part of SCIoI member Svetlana Levit’s seminar “Selected Topics in Robot Learning,” which explores how advances in machine learning are helping robots operate in new environments, learn new behaviors, and adapt to changing conditions.

Hot Topics in Intelligence Research

Giovanni Beltrame (Polytechnique Montreal), “Field Collective Robotics: Challenges and Applications”

SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Giovanni Beltrame is a Professor in the Department of Computer and Software Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, where he leads the Making Innovative Space Technology (MIST) Laboratory. At MIST Lab, Giovanni is conducting projects in collaboration with industry and government agencies in areas such as robotics, disaster response, and space exploration. His research interests include the