Hariri Institute and CISE Seminar: Michael Milford, Professor, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)

Talk Title: Insights and New Questions for Machine and Natural Learning of Spatial Intelligence in Robots and Animals

Abstract: Our lab has spent the past two decades bridging the divide between our understanding of the neuroscience and behaviour underlying animal mapping, localization and perception systems, and creating their high performance technological equivalents for robots and autonomous vehicles. In this talk I will cover some of the key insights we’ve discovered from these very different research endeavours, in particular in going all the way from theoretical models of neural systems to high performance, deployable technology. Our quest to create reliable, introspective mapping and positioning systems for robots has also cast a light on the limited utility of the performance metrics so strongly favoured in current computer science research, that both challenge our concepts of how we conduct research, and reframe how we might think about analysing the performance of natural animal systems.

Bio: Professor Milford conducts interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience, computer vision and machine learning, and is a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur. His research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception to develop new technologies in challenging application domains such as all-weather, anytime positioning for autonomous vehicles. He currently holds the position of Joint Director of the QUT Centre for Robotics, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, and is a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.

When 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm on Monday, April 10, 2023
Location CDS, 665 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 1101