Outside:Inside Perspectives Series WHAT: James Kuffner (The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University): "Motion Planning for Humanoid Robots" PANEL MEMBERS: Host: Ernesto Martinez-Villalpando Marko Popovic (Biomechatronics) Andreas Hoffman (Biomechatronics) Andrew Brooks (Robotic Life) Jeff Orkin (Cognitive Machines) WHEN: Wednesday, February 8, 2006 4:30-6:00PM EST WHERE: Bartos Theatre, MIT Media Lab (E15) FORMAT: 30-minute guest speaker presentation 30-minute panel discussion Q & A period SUMMARY: Humanoid robots are complex dynamic systems whose technology has evolved rapidly during the past decade. Presently, several companies are developing commercial prototype humanoid robots. In order to improve the autonomy and overall functionality of these robots, reliable sensors, safety mechanisms, and general integrated software tools and techniques are needed. The development of practical motion-planning algorithms and obstacle avoidance capabilities represents one important enabling technology. This lecture will discuss the challenge of motion autonomy for humanoid robots, and present an overview of several motion-generation methods designed for application tasks involving navigation, object grasping and manipulation, footstep placement, and full-body motions. Experimental results obtained by implementations running within a simulation environment, as well as on actual humanoid robot hardware, will be shown. Kuffner will also present crossover applications of motion planning in computer graphics, animation, and virtual reality. BIO: James Kuffner is an assistant professor at the Robotics Institute, Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University. He received a BS and MS in computer science from Stanford University, and a PhD from the Stanford University Department of Computer Science Robotics Laboratory. He was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo. He joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests include robotics, motion planning, and computer graphics and animation. MIT Media Laboratory Home Page | Events Main Index