As AI has begun to reach out beyond its symbolic, objectivist roots into the embodied, experientialist realm, many projects are exploring different aspects of creating machines which interact with and respond to the world ...

We consider an online learning scenario in which the learner can make predictions on the basis of a fixed set of experts. The performance of each expert may change over time in a manner unknown to the learner. We formulate ...

Research on autonomous intelligent systems has focused on how robots can robustly carry out missions in uncertain and harsh environments with very little or no human intervention. Robotic execution languages such as RAPs, ...

This thesis presents a perceptual system for a humanoid robot that integrates abilities such as object localization and recognition with the deeper developmental machinery required to forge those competences out of raw ...

We present a statistical image-based shape + structure model for Bayesian visual hull reconstruction and 3D structure inference. The 3D shape of a class of objects is represented by sets of contours from silhouette ...

Sketches are commonly used in the early stages of design. Our previous system allows users to sketch mechanical systems that the computer interprets. However, some parts of the mechanical system might be too hard or too ...

In this text, we present two stereo-based head tracking techniques along with a fast 3D model acquisition system. The first tracking technique is a robust implementation of stereo-based head tracking designed for ...

One objective of artificial intelligence is to model the behavior of an intelligent agent interacting with its environment. The environment's transformations can be modeled as a Markov chain, whose state is partially ...

The goal of the work reported here is to capture the commonsense knowledge of non-expert human contributors. Achieving this goal will enable more intelligent human-computer interfaces and pave the way for computers to ...

Biological systems exhibit rich and complex behavior through the orchestrated interplay of a large array of components. It is hypothesized that separable subsystems with some degree of functional autonomy exist; deciphering ...

As exploration of our solar system and outerspace move into the future, spacecraft are being developed to venture on increasingly challenging missions with bold objectives. The spacecraft tasked with completing these ...

Humans distinguish materials such as metal, plastic, and paper effortlessly at a glance. Traditional computer vision systems cannot solve this problem at all. Recognizing surface reflectance properties from a single ...

The furious pace of Moore's Law is driving computer architecture into a realm where the the speed of light is the dominant factor in system latencies. The number of clock cycles to span a chip are increasing, while the ...

This paper describes a system for the computer understanding of English. The system answers questions, executes commands, and accepts information in normal English dialog. It uses semantic information and context to ...

A method is presented for the visual analysis of objects by computer. It is particularly well suited for opaque objects with smoothly curved surfaces. The method extracts information about the object's surface properties, ...

We describe an adaptive, mid-level approach to the wireless device power management problem. Our approach is based on reinforcement learning, a machine learning framework for autonomous agents. We describe how our ...

In this thesis, I designed and implemented a virtual machine (VM) for a monomorphic variant of Athena, a type-omega denotational proof language (DPL). This machine attempts to maintain the minimum state required to ...

General-purpose computing devices allow us to (1) customize computation after fabrication and (2) conserve area by reusing expensive active circuitry for different functions in time. We define RP-space, a restricted ...

Concurrent Smalltalk is the primary language used for programming the J- Machine, a MIMD message-passing computer containing thousands of 36-bit processors connected by a very low latency network. This thesis describes ...

We present a general framework for discriminative estimation based on the maximum entropy principle and its extensions. All calculations involve distributions over structures and/or parameters rather than specific ...