UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
		 COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

			      presents

	   "Towards Incremental, On-line Learning of Full Body
		 Motion Primitives for Humanoid Robots"

			  Dr. Dana Kulic
		   (University of Tokyo, Japan)

		    5 August 2008 (Tuesday)

		      Seminar Room D120
		  Hatfield, College Lane Campus
			   3 - 4 pm

	       Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available.

		    Everyone is Welcome to Attend




Abstract:

In this talk, I will first briefly overview the research activities of
the Nakamura-Yamane Lab at the University of Tokyo.  The talk will
focus on our recent work on learning by observation for humanoid
robots. Learning behavior and motion primitives from observation is a
key skill for humanoid robots, enabling humanoids to take advantage of
their similar body structure to humans.  The goal of our research is to
develop robots which can learn during continuous co-location and
interaction with humans in the human environment. In the proposed
approach, human motion patterns are abstracted into a dynamic
stochastic model, which can be used for both subsequent motion
recognition and motion generation, analogous to the mirror neuron
hypothesis in primates.  An algorithm for on-line, incremental learning
of whole body motion primitives by observation of human motion will be
described.  As new motion patterns are observed, they are
stochastically segmented and incrementally grouped together using local
clustering based on relative distances in the model space. Over time,
the algorithm incrementally forms a tree structure representing the
motion space, with specialized motions at the tree leaves, and
generalized motions closer to the root.  The talk will conclude with an
overview of preliminary experimental results and a discussion of future
research directions.

About the speaker:  Dana Kulic received a combined B. A. Sc. and M.
Eng. degree in electro-mechanical engineering, and  Ph. D. degree in
mechanical engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada,
in 1998 and 2005, respectively.  She is currently a Japan Society for
the the Promotion of Science post-doctoral fellow at the
Nakamura-Yamane Laboratory in the Department of Mechano-Informatics at
the University of Tokyo, Japan. Her research interests include
human-robot interaction, robot learning and humanoid robotics.

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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq