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SUMMARY:From rats to robot navigation and beyond - Dr Michael Milford\, Qu
 uensland University of Technology
DTSTART:20150514T100000Z
DTEND:20150514T110000Z
UID:TALK59469@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Rachel Fogg
DESCRIPTION:The brain circuitry involved in encoding space in rodents has 
 been extensively tested over the past forty years\, with an ever increasin
 g body of knowledge about the components and wiring involved in navigation
  tasks. The learning and recall of spatial features is known to take place
  in and around the hippocampus of the rodent\, where there is clear eviden
 ce of cells that encode the rodent's position and heading. RatSLAM is a pr
 imarily vision-based robotic navigation system based on current models of 
 the rodent hippocampus\, which has achieved several significant outcomes i
 n vision-based Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM)\, including ma
 pping of an entire suburb using only a low cost webcam\, and navigation co
 ntinuously over a period of two weeks in a delivery robot experiment. This
  research led to recent experiments demonstrating that impressive feats of
  route-constrained vision-based place recognition can be achieved at any t
 ime of day or night\, during any weather\, and in any season using visual 
 images as small as 2 pixels in size. In our current research we are invest
 igating the problem of place recognition and visual navigation from two an
 gles. The first is from a neuroscience-inspired perspective\, modelling th
 e multi-scale neuronal map of space found in the mammalian brain and the v
 ariably tolerant and selective visual recognition process in the primate a
 nd humanbrain. The second is from an algorithmic perspective\, utilizing s
 tate of the art deep learning techniques. I will discuss the insights from
  this research\, as well as current and future areas of study with the aim
  of stimulating discussion and collaboration.\n\nBio: I hold a PhD in Elec
 trical Engineering and a Bachelor of Mechanical and Space Engineering from
  the University of Queensland (UQ)\, awarded in 2006 and 2002 respectively
 . After a brief postdoc in robotics at UQ\, I worked for three years at th
 e Queensland Brain Institute as a Research Fellow on the Thinking Systems 
 Project. In 2010 I moved to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) 
 to finish off my Thinking Systems postdoc\, and then was appointed as a Le
 cturer in 2011. In 2012 I was awarded an inaugural Australian Research Cou
 ncil Discovery Early Career Researcher Award\, which provides me with a re
 search-intensive fellowship salary and extra funding support for 3 years. 
 In 2013 I became a Microsoft Faculty Fellow and lived in Boston on sabbati
 cal working with Harvard and Boston University. I am currently a Senior Le
 cturer and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at QUT with a researc
 h focus\, although I continue to teach Introduction to Robotics every year
 .  From 2014 to 2020 I am a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research 
 Council Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision.\n\nMy research interests 
 include vision-based mapping and navigation\, computational modelling of t
 he rodent hippocampus and entorhinal cortex\, especially with respect to m
 apping and navigation\, computational modelling of human visual recognitio
 n\, biologically inspired robot navigation and computer vision and Simulta
 neous Localisation And Mapping (SLAM).\n\n
LOCATION: Cambridge University Engineering Department\, Lecture Room 5
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