•   When: Tuesday, February 25, 2020 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
•   Speakers: Erion Plaku
•   Location: Engineering Building 4201
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Abstract

 Advances in AI are giving rise to systems that can see, hear, communicate, act, and learn, seeking to extend and enhance every aspect of human life.  This progress has been driven by pursuit of

fundamental questions that continue to drive much of AI research: how do you enhance the autonomy and capability of agents to work alongside and collaborate with humans? Toward this goal, my group’s research brings together concepts from AI, motion planning, and logic, to develop planning frameworks that enable human supervisors to describe tasks in high-level structured languages and have the framework automatically plan actions and motions for agents to safely and effectively complete assigned tasks.  This line of research has the potential to establish a novel paradigm for supervised autonomy that increases productivity and capabilities. Applications in autonomous underwater vehicles, logistics, and air-traffic control will be highlighted. Finally, I will discuss emerging challenges and opportunities in research and education, as well as share my vision of the way forward.

Bio

 Erion Plaku is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Catholic University of America (CUA). Dr. Plaku is currently an IPA Program Director at the National Science Foundation, where he manages the CISE/IIS Robust Intelligence and National Robotics Initiative programs. He was also a member of the working group that designed and launched the Foundational Research in Robotics program, which he also manages. Dr. Plaku is a member of the

AI R&D and Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems Interagency Working Groups as part of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program. Dr. Plaku received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Rice University in 2008 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University from 2008 to 2010. His research is supported by NSF and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Dr. Plaku has been the recipient of an ONR Faculty Research Fellowship in 2014 and several CUA awards for Excellence in Research. Several of his undergraduate and graduate students have received Best Paper awards at international conferences in AI and Robotics.