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Fall 2024 GRASP on Robotics: Antonio Loquercio, University of Pennsylvania, “Simulation: What made us intelligent will make our robots intelligent”
October 11 at 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
This will be a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom.
ABSTRACT
Simulation-to-reality transfer is an emerging approach that enables robots to develop skills in simulated environments before applying them in the real world. This method has catalyzed numerous advancements in robotic learning, from locomotion to agile flight. In this talk, I will explore simulation-to-reality transfer through the lens of evolutionary biology, drawing intriguing parallels with the function of the mammalian neocortex. By reframing this technique in the context of biological evolution, we can uncover novel research questions and explore how simulation-to-reality transfer can evolve from an empirically driven process to a scientific discipline.
Antonio Loquercio
University of Pennsylvania
Antonio Loquercio (https://antonilo.github.io/) is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD and M.Sc. from UZH and ETH Zurich in 2021 and 2017. His research interests include learning-based robotics, computer vision, and machine learning. His work includes seminal results on vision-based agile flight via learning sensorimotor policies and continual learning in legged locomotion. He is the recipient of the 2017 ETH Medal for Outstanding Master Thesis, the Best System Paper Award at the Conference on Robot Learning (CORL) 2018, the RSS’20 Best Paper Award Honorable Mention, and the T-RO’20 Best Paper Award Honorable Mention. His article on superhuman drone racing was featured on Nature’s cover. He received the Georges Giralt PhD Award, the most prestigious award for PhD dissertations in robotics in Europe.