The Southern California Robotics Symposium (SCR) is a one-day technical symposium that aims to bring together roboticists from around Southern California. With a high density of academic institutions, research centers, and industry players, SCR is expected to have a large audience with broad expertise and interests. It will also be a showcase for established and up-and-coming robot companies as well as a recruitment opportunity for local companies and startups.

After hosting SCR 2017 and SCR 2016, we hope to continue the success of this annual conference. The symposium will once again feature an amazing line-up of speakers from academia and industry, robotics demos, and industry booths. In addition, feature poster/demo sessions will foster discussion on recent developments in robotics.

Register for the symposium!

Schedule

Check-in and Breakfast Sponsored by iRobot
Opening Remarks
Morteza Gharib: Welcome to SCR
First Session of Talks
Aaron D. Ames: The Quest for Autonomy on Robotic Systems
Emel Demircan: Understanding Human Perception in Manipulation and Locomotion Skills
Thomas Bewley: Delta-DOGS and the increasing role of efficient nonconvex optimization in the design and deployment of complex robotic systems
Benjamin T Pipenberg: Design and development of the Mars Helicopter Rotor System and Airframe
Michael Lohnert: Understanding the stage of your startup and working with venture capitalists
Coffee Break
Second Session of Talks
Animashree Anandkumar: Enabling Autonomy by Infusing Physics and Structure into Machine Learning Algorithms
Satyandra K. Gupta: Realizing Smart Robotic Assistants through Advances in Artificial Intelligence
Jorge Cortés: Resource-Aware Coordination Algorithms of Multi-Agent Systems
Aaron Parness: Climbing Robots for Extreme Environments
Andreas Kolling: The technologies inside the Roomba i7+
Lunch
Spotlight Talks
Posters, Exhibitions and Tours
Third Session of Talks
Vandi Verma: Autonomous Target Selection and Observation for Curiosity and Mars 2020 rovers
Ryan Sinnet: Bringing AI-Powered Robots into Food Service
Solmaz S. Kia: UWB-based decentralized cooperative localization for Infrastructure-free localization in GPS-denied Environments
Elliot Hawkes: Adding Soft to Robotics: From gecko-inspired wall-climbing to vine-inspired navigation
Stefan Scherer: Learning Representations of Human Behavior
Closing Remarks
Reception

Papers

We received many great submissions this year and accepted more contributions than we could fit in the Spotlight Session. Make sure to check out all contributions in the poster session!

Presented in the Spotlight and Poster Sessions
1:15PM 1. Elizabeth R. Boroson and Nora Ayanian 3D Keypoint Repeatability for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot SLAM
1:18PM 2. Parth Paritosh, Nikolay Atanasov and Sonia Martinez Distributed estimation algorithms on optimally assigned hypotheses
1:21PM 3. Jiali Duan, Qian Wang, Lerrel Pinto, C.-C. Jay Kuo and Stefanos Nikolaidis Robust Grasping via Human Adversary
1:24PM 4. Qiaojun Feng, Yue Meng, Mo Shan, and Nikolay Atanasov Localization and Mapping using Instance-specific Mesh Models
1:27PM 5. Weicheng Huang, Xiaonan Huang, Carmel Majidi, and Mohammad K. Jawed Dynamic Simulation for Soft Multi-limbed Robot
1:30PM 6. Sangjun Lee and Byung-Cheol Min Secure Multi-Robot Systems: Distributed Cyber-Threat Identification using Direction of Arrival of Wireless Signals
1:33PM 7. Maryam Pourebadi and Laurel D. Riek Enhancing Robotic Patient Simulators to Support the Clinical Workforce
1:36PM 8. Dezhong Tong, Longhui Qin, Yayun Du, Weicheng Huang, Mohammad Khalid Jawed Robust Physics-based Scheme for Robotic Deployment of Elastic Ropes
1:39PM 9. Hiroyasu Tsukamoto and Soon-Jo Chung Optimal Tracking Control for Stochastic Nonlinear Systems using Contraction Analysis
1:42PM 10. Hejia Zhang, Eric Heiden, Stefanos Nikolaidis, Joseph J. Lim, Gaurav S. Sukhatme Auto-conditioned Recurrent Mixture Density Networks for Learning Generalizable Robot Skills
1:45PM 11. Xinyun Zou, Tiffany Hwu, Emre Neftci, and Jeffrey Krichmar Terrain Classification With A Reservoir-Based Network of Spiking Neurons
1:48PM 12. Guanya Shi, Xichen Shi, Michael O’Connell, Rose Yu, Kamyar Azizzadenesheli, Animashree Anandkumar, Yisong Yue, and Soon-Jo Chung Neural Lander: Stable Drone Landing Control Using Learned Dynamics
1:51PM 13. Artem Molchanov, Tao Chen, Wolfgang Honig, James A. Preiss, Nora Ayanian and Gaurav S. Sukhatme Sim-to-(Multi)-Real: Transfer of Low-Level Robust Control Policies to Multiple Quadrotors
1:54PM 14. Baskın Şenbaşlar, Wolfgang Hönig, and Nora Ayanian Robust Trajectory Execution for Multi-Robot Teams Using Distributed Real-time Replanning
1:57PM 15. Angelique Taylor and Laurel D. Riek Group Perception Methods to Support Human-Robot Teaming
2:00PM 16. Tianyu Wang and Nikolay Atanasov Learning Navigation Costs from Demonstration via Differentiable Planning
2:03PM 17. Muhan Zhao, Shahrouz Ryan Alimo, Pooriya Beyhaghi, and Thomas R. Bewley Safe Learning Derivative-free Optimization via Global Surrogates for Quadrotors Trajectory Following
Presented in the Poster Session
21. Mo Shan Weakly supervised keypoint detection
22. Azarakhsh Jalalvand, Baptist Vandersmissen, Wesley De Neve, Erik Mannens Gait-based Authentication Using Radars and Reservoir Computing Networks
23. Tiffany Hwu, Hirak J. Kashyap and Jeffrey L. Krichmar Applying a Neurobiological Model of Schemas and Memory Consolidation to Contextual Awareness in Robotics
24. Tsang-Kai Chang, Shengkang Chen and Ankur Mehta Localization Algorithm with Circular Representation in 2D and its Similarity to Mammalian Brains
25. Alexander S. Koumis, James A. Preiss, and Gaurav S. Sukhatme Learned Metric Scale Visual Odometry with 3D Convolutions
26. Elliot Recinos, Makenna Henry, and Emel Demircan A Virtual Reality Environment with Haptic Feedback for Psychological Rehabilitation for Soccer Athletes
27. Giovanni Sutanto, Balakumar Sundaralingam, Yevgen Chebotar, Zhe Su, Ankur Handa, Nathan Ratliff and Dieter Fox Learning Latent Space Dynamics for Tactile Servoing
28. Yayun Du, Jacqueline Lam, Karunesh Sachanandani, Weicheng Huang, Mohammad Khalid Jawed Locomotion of Soft Robots with Flexible Flagella in Granular Medium
29. John R. Abella and Emel Demircan A Multi-body Simulation Framework for Live Motion Tracking and Analysis within the Unity Environment
30. Paul B. Reverdy Value-based decision making for human-machine robot control
31. Alyssa Kubota, Tariq Iqbal, Julie A. Shah, Laurel D. Riek Motion capture and sEMG+inertial wearables in detecting fine vs. gross motion
32. Caleb Christianson, Nathaniel N. Goldberg, Guorui Li, Dimitri Deheyn, Shengqiang Cai, and Michael T. Tolley Soft, Silent, and See-through: Swimming Robots Based on Dielectric Elastomer Actuators with Fluid Electrodes
33. Aamodh Suresh and Sonia Martínez Human-Swarm Interactions for Formation Control using Interpreters
34. Michael Ishida, Dylan Drotman, Benjamin Shih, Mark Hermes, Mitul Luhar, and Michael T. Tolley Morphing Structure for Changing Hydrodynamic Characteristics of a Soft Underwater Walking Robot
35. Dylan Drotman, David Sharp, Michael Ishida, Saurabh Jadhav, Philip deZonia, Mahmood Karimi, Michael T. Tolley Rapid Fabrication of Soft, Pneumatically Actuated Limbs and Joints for a Quadruped Robot
36. Shurjo Banerjee, Vikas Dhiman, Jason Corso Modular Q-learning on manipulators with kinematic trees
37. Fatak Borhani, Niranjan Ravichandra, John L. Crassidis Experimental Validation of GPS-denied Relative Attitude Determination for Two-Vehicle Formations
38. Sauhaarda Chowdhuri, Tushar Pankaj, Karl Zipser MultiNet: Multi-Modal Multi-Task Learning for Autonomous Driving
39. Kyunam Kim, Salar Rahili, Xichen Shi, Soon-Jo Chung, and Morteza Gharib Controllability and Design of Unmanned Multirotor Aircraft Robust to Rotor Failure
40. Rebecca Foust, Soon-Jo Chung and Fred Hadaegh Optimal Guidance and Control for In-Orbit Self-Assembly of Large Structures
41. David D. Fan, Rohan Thakker, Tara Bartlett, Meriem Ben Miled, Leon Kim, Evangelos Theodorou, Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi Autonomous Hybrid Ground/Aerial Mobility in Unknown Environments
42. Tomoki Emmei, Thomas Lew, Tara Bartlett, David D. Fan, Rohan Thakker, Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi Contact based Exploration for a Hybrid Aerial-Ground Vehicle

Exhibition Booths and Sponsorship

We would like to invite your company or university to be part of the Booth Exhibition which will take place in front of Ramo Auditorium and support SCR2019.

More details at: Call for Sponsorship and Booths

Venue

Ramo Auditorium
1200 East California Boulevard
Pasadena CA 91125

The symposium will be held in the Ramo Auditorium at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA.

Directions to Caltech.

List of Sponsors

SCR 2019 is made possible by these organizations and companies.