Jing Xiao Presents Plenary Talk at IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration

Jing Xiao, Robotics Engineering Department Head, Deans’ Excellence Professor and William B. Smith Distinguished Fellow in Robotics Engineering, was a plenary speaker at IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration. IEEE/SICE SII is the “premier symposium series presenting the state-of-the-art and future perspectives of system integration, where industry experts, researchers, and academics share ideas and experiences surrounding frontier technologies, breakthroughs, and innovative solutions and applications.” The symposium was held in Munich, Germany, in late January. The conference is hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE), Japan.

Professor Xiao’s plenary talk, “Adaptive Robotic Systems in Unknown and Uncertain Environments” focused on major software challenges and general adaptive solutions for robotic systems on autonomous exploration and visual coverage of unknown environments based on onboard sensing, highlighting the importance of system integration. She also introduced system integration in autonomous search of semantic objects in unknown environments and autonomous manipulation of unknown objects.

In her abstract, Xiao noted that “To enable robots to operate in unknown and uncertain environments requires not only research of important capabilities such as perception, reasoning, planning, learning, control, and actuation, but tight system integration of the respective hardware and software components to perform in real time.”

See the symposium agenda for details.

Xiao’s presentation further demonstrates WPI’s expertise and research in robotics. Late last year, Bogdan Vernescu, Vice President and Vice Provost for Research and Innovation; and Carlo Pinciroli, associate professor of robotics engineering, represented WPI in a discussion of regional innovation in robotics, hosted by The New England Council.