Artificial Intelligence

Researchers

Awards

AWARD Joint University of Padua-MERL team wins Challenge 'AI Olympics With RealAIGym'
Date: August 25, 2023
Awarded to: Alberto Dalla Libera, Niccolo' Turcato, Giulio Giacomuzzo, Ruggero Carli, Diego Romeres
MERL Contact: Diego Romeres
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics
Brief
- A joint team consisting of members of University of Padua and MERL ranked 1st in the IJCAI2023 Challenge "Al Olympics With RealAlGym: Is Al Ready for Athletic Intelligence in the Real World?". The team was composed by MERL researcher Diego Romeres and a team from University Padua (UniPD) consisting of Alberto Dalla Libera, Ph.D., Ph.D. Candidates: Niccolò Turcato, Giulio Giacomuzzo and Prof. Ruggero Carli from University of Padua.
  
  The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) is a premier gathering for AI researchers and organizes several competitions. This year the competition CC7 "AI Olympics With RealAIGym: Is AI Ready for Athletic Intelligence in the Real World?" consisted of two stages: simulation and real-robot experiments on two under-actuated robotic systems. The two robotics systems were treated as separate tracks and one final winner was selected for each track based on specific performance criteria in the control tasks.
  
  The UniPD-MERL team competed and won in both tracks. The team's system made strong use of a Model-based Reinforcement Learning algorithm called (MC-PILCO) that we recently published in the journal IEEE Transaction on Robotics.
AWARD MERL Intern and Researchers Win ICASSP 2023 Best Student Paper Award
Date: June 9, 2023
Awarded to: Darius Petermann, Gordon Wichern, Aswin Subramanian, Jonathan Le Roux
MERL Contacts: Jonathan Le Roux; Gordon Wichern
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Speech & Audio
Brief
- Former MERL intern Darius Petermann (Ph.D. Candidate at Indiana University) has received a Best Student Paper Award at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023) for the paper "Hyperbolic Audio Source Separation", co-authored with MERL researchers Gordon Wichern and Jonathan Le Roux, and former MERL researcher Aswin Subramanian. The paper presents work performed during Darius's internship at MERL in the summer 2022. The paper introduces a framework for audio source separation using embeddings on a hyperbolic manifold that compactly represent the hierarchical relationship between sound sources and time-frequency features. Additionally, the code associated with the paper is publicly available at https://github.com/merlresearch/hyper-unmix.
  
  ICASSP is the flagship conference of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS). ICASSP 2023 was held in the Greek island of Rhodes from June 04 to June 10, 2023, and it was the largest ICASSP in history, with more than 4000 participants, over 6128 submitted papers and 2709 accepted papers. Darius’s paper was first recognized as one of the Top 3% of all papers accepted at the conference, before receiving one of only 5 Best Student Paper Awards during the closing ceremony.
AWARD MERL’s Paper on Wi-Fi Sensing Earns Top 3% Paper Recognition at ICASSP 2023, Selected as a Best Student Paper Award Finalist
Date: June 9, 2023
Awarded to: Cristian J. Vaca-Rubio, Pu Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, Petros Boufounos and Petar Popovski
MERL Contacts: Petros T. Boufounos; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Pu (Perry) Wang; Ye Wang
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Computational Sensing, Dynamical Systems, Machine Learning, Signal Processing
Brief
- A MERL Paper on Wi-Fi sensing was recognized as a Top 3% Paper among all 2709 accepted papers at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023). Co-authored by Cristian Vaca-Rubio and Petar Popovski from Aalborg University, Denmark, and MERL researchers Pu Wang, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Ye Wang, and Petros Boufounos, the paper "MmWave Wi-Fi Trajectory Estimation with Continous-Time Neural Dynamic Learning" was also a Best Student Paper Award finalist.
  
  Performed during Cristian’s stay at MERL first as a visiting Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and then as a full-time intern in 2022, this work capitalizes on standards-compliant Wi-Fi signals to perform indoor localization and sensing. The paper uses a neural dynamic learning framework to address technical issues such as low sampling rate and irregular sampling intervals.
  
  ICASSP, a flagship conference of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), was hosted on the Greek island of Rhodes from June 04 to June 10, 2023. ICASSP 2023 marked the largest ICASSP in history, boasting over 4000 participants and 6128 submitted papers, out of which 2709 were accepted.

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News & Events

NEWS MERL Researchers give a Tutorial Talk on Quantum Machine Learning for Sensing and Communications at IEEE VCC
Date: November 28, 2023 - November 30, 2023
Where: Virtual
MERL Contacts: Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Pu (Perry) Wang
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Computational Sensing, Machine Learning, Signal Processing
Brief
- On November 28, 2023, MERL researchers Toshiaki Koike-Akino and Pu (Perry) Wang will give a 3-hour tutorial presentation at the first IEEE Virtual Conference on Communications (VCC). The talk, titled "Post-Deep Learning Era: Emerging Quantum Machine Learning for Sensing and Communications," addresses recent trends, challenges, and advances in sensing and communications. P. Wang presents use cases, industry trends, signal processing, and deep learning for Wi-Fi integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), while T. Koike-Akino discusses the future of deep learning, giving a comprehensive overview of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, natural computing, emerging quantum AI, and their diverse applications. The tutorial is conducted virtually.
  
  IEEE VCC is a new fully virtual conference launched from the IEEE Communications Society, gathering researchers from academia and industry who are unable to travel but wish to present their recent scientific results and engage in conducive interactive discussions with fellow researchers working in their fields. It is designed to resolve potential hardship such as pandemic restrictions, visa issues, travel problems, or financial difficulties.
NEWS Anoop Cherian gives a podcast interview with AI Business
Date: September 26, 2023
Where: Virtual
MERL Contact: Anoop Cherian
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Machine Learning
Brief
- Anoop Cherian, a Senior Principal Research Scientist in the Computer Vision team at MERL, gave a podcast interview with award-winning journalist, Deborah Yao. Deborah is the editor of AI Business -- a leading content platform for artificial intelligence and its applications in the real world, delivering its readers up-to-the-minute insights into how AI technologies are currently affecting the global economy and society. The podcast was based on the recent research that Anoop and his colleagues did at MERL with his collaborators at MIT; this research attempts to objectively answer the pertinent question: are current deep neural networks smarter than second graders? The podcast discusses shortcomings in the recent artificial general intelligence systems with regard to their capabilities for knowledge abstraction, learning, and generalization, which are brought out by this research.

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Research Highlights

Internships

CI2075: Human-Machine Interface with Biosignal Processing

MERL is seeking an intern to work on research for human-machine interface with multi-modal bio-sensors. The ideal candidate is an experienced PhD student or post-graduate researcher having an excellent background in brain-machine interface (BMI), deep learning, mixed reality (XR), remote robot manipulation, bionics, and bio sensing. The expected duration of the internship is 3-6 months, with a flexible start date.
OR2110: Shared Autonomy for Human-Robot Interaction

MERL is looking for a highly motivated and qualified intern to work on human-robot interaction (HRI) research. The ideal candidate would be a Ph.D. student with a strong background in HRI, focusing on robotic manipulation, deep learning, probabilistic modeling, or reinforcement learning. Several topics are available for consideration, including Intent Recognition in Multi-Object Scenes, Shared Autonomy, Cooperative Manipulation, Human-Robot Handovers, and Representation Learning for HRI. Experience working with robotics hardware and physics engine simulators like PyBullet, Issac Gym, or Mujoco is preferred. Proficiency in Python programming is necessary, and experience with ROS is a plus. The successful candidate will collaborate with MERL researchers, and publication of the relevant results is expected. The start date is flexible, and the expected duration of the internship is 3-4 months. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply with their recent CV and list of publications in related topics.
OR2111: Deep Learning for Robotic Manipulation

MERL is seeking a highly motivated and qualified intern to work on deep learning for visual feedback in robotic manipulation. The ideal candidate would be a Ph.D. student with a strong background in deep learning and robotic manipulation. Several topics are available for consideration, including Object Pose Estimation, Goal-driven Grasping, Diffusion policy for Industrial Tasks, and Deformable Object Manipulation. The project requires the development of novel algorithms with implementation and evaluation on a robotic platform. Preferred qualifications include experience working with a physics engine simulator like PyBullet, Isaac Gym, or Mujoco, proficiency in Python programming, and experience with ROS. The successful candidate will collaborate with MERL researchers, and publication of relevant results is expected. The start date is flexible, and the expected duration of the internship is 3-4 months. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply with their recent CV and a list of publications in related topics

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Recent Publications

Wu, S.-L., Chang, X., Wichern, G., Jung, J.-W., Germain, F.G., Le Roux, J., Watanabe, S., "On the Use of Pretrained Deep Audio Encoders for Automated Audio Captioning Tasks", International Symposium on Future Active Safety Technology toward zero traffic accidents (FAST-zero), November 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-141 PDF
- @inproceedings{Wu2023nov,
- author = {Wu, Shih-Lun and Chang, Xuankai and Wichern, Gordon and Jung, Jee-weon and Germain, François G and Le Roux, Jonathan and Watanabe, Shinji},
- title = {On the Use of Pretrained Deep Audio Encoders for Automated Audio Captioning Tasks},
- booktitle = {International Symposium on Future Active Safety Technology toward zero traffic accidents (FAST-zero)},
- year = 2023,
- month = nov,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-141}
- }
Nair, N.G., Cherian, A., Lohit, S., Wang, Y., Koike-Akino, T., Patel, V.M., Marks, T.K., "Steered Diffusion: A Generalized Framework for Plug-and-Play Conditional Image Synthesis", IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), October 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-126 PDF Presentation
- @inproceedings{Nair2023sep,
- author = {Nair, Nithin Gopalakrishnan and Cherian, Anoop and Lohit, Suhas and Wang, Ye and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Patel, Vishal M. and Marks, Tim K.},
- title = {Steered Diffusion: A Generalized Framework for Plug-and-Play Conditional Image Synthesis},
- booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV)},
- year = 2023,
- month = oct,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-126}
- }
Sharma, M., Chatterjee, M., Peng, K.-C., Lohit, S., Jones, M.J., "Tensor Factorization for Leveraging Cross-Modal Knowledge in Data-Constrained Infrared Object Detection", IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Workshops (ICCV), October 2023, pp. 924-932.
BibTeX TR2023-125 PDF Presentation
- @inproceedings{Sharma2023oct,
- author = {Sharma, Manish and Chatterjee, Moitreya and Peng, Kuan-Chuan and Lohit, Suhas and Jones, Michael J.},
- title = {Tensor Factorization for Leveraging Cross-Modal Knowledge in Data-Constrained Infrared Object Detection},
- booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Workshops (ICCV)},
- year = 2023,
- pages = {924--932},
- month = oct,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-125}
- }
Huang, B., Yu, J., Jain, S., "EARL: Eye-on-Hand Reinforcement Learner for Dynamic Grasping with Active Pose Estimation", 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), October 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-118 PDF Video
- @inproceedings{Huang2023oct,
- author = {Huang, Baichuan and Yu, Jingjin and Jain, Siddarth},
- title = {EARL: Eye-on-Hand Reinforcement Learner for Dynamic Grasping with Active Pose Estimation},
- booktitle = {2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
- year = 2023,
- month = oct,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-118}
- }
Falcon Perez, R., Wichern, G., Germain, F., Le Roux, J., "Location as supervision for weakly supervised multi-channel source separation of machine sounds", IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics (WASPAA), DOI: 10.1109/WASPAA58266.2023.10248128, September 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-119 PDF Presentation
- @inproceedings{FalconPerez2023aug,
- author = {Falcon Perez, Ricardo and Wichern, Gordon and Germain, Francois and Le Roux, Jonathan},
- title = {Location as supervision for weakly supervised multi-channel source separation of machine sounds},
- booktitle = {IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics (WASPAA)},
- year = 2023,
- month = sep,
- publisher = {IEEE},
- doi = {10.1109/WASPAA58266.2023.10248128},
- issn = {1947-1629},
- isbn = {979-8-3503-2372-6},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-119}
- }
Germain, F., Wichern, G., Le Roux, J., "Hyperbolic Unsupervised Anomalous Sound Detection", IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics (WASPAA), DOI: 10.1109/WASPAA58266.2023.10248092, September 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-108 PDF Video Presentation
- @inproceedings{Germain2023aug,
- author = {Germain, Francois and Wichern, Gordon and Le Roux, Jonathan},
- title = {Hyperbolic Unsupervised Anomalous Sound Detection},
- booktitle = {IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics (WASPAA)},
- year = 2023,
- month = sep,
- publisher = {IEEE},
- doi = {10.1109/WASPAA58266.2023.10248092},
- issn = {1947-1629},
- isbn = {979-8-3503-2372-6},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-108}
- }
Petermann, D., Wichern, G., Subramanian, A.S., Wang, Z.-Q., Le Roux, J., "Tackling the Cocktail Fork Problem for Separation and Transcription of Real-World Soundtracks", IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, DOI: 10.1109/TASLP.2023.3290428, Vol. 31, pp. 2592-2605, September 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-113 PDF
- @article{Petermann2023sep,
- author = {Petermann, Darius and Wichern, Gordon and Subramanian, Aswin Shanmugam and Wang, Zhong-Qiu and Le Roux, Jonathan},
- title = {Tackling the Cocktail Fork Problem for Separation and Transcription of Real-World Soundtracks},
- journal = {IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing},
- year = 2023,
- volume = 31,
- pages = {2592--2605},
- month = sep,
- doi = {10.1109/TASLP.2023.3290428},
- issn = {2329-9304},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-113}
- }
Yoshino, K., Chen, Y.-N., Crook, P., Kottur, S., Li, J., Hedayatnia, B., Moon, S., Fe, Z., Li, Z., Zhang, J., Fen, Y., Zhou, J., Kim, S., Liu, Y., Jin, D., Papangelis, A., Gopalakrishnan, K., Hakkani-Tur, D., Damavandi, B., Geramifard, A., <br /><br /> Hori, C., Shah, A., Zhang, C., Li, H., Sedoc, J., D’Haro, L.F., Banchs, R., Rudnicky, A., "Overview of the Tenth Dialog System Technology Challenge: DSTC10", IEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, DOI: 10.1109/TASLP.2023.3293030, pp. 1-14, August 2023.
BibTeX TR2023-109 PDF
- @article{Yoshino2023aug,
- author = {Yoshino, Koichiro and Chen, Yun-Nung and Crook, Paul and Kottur, Satwik and Li, Jinchao and Hedayatnia, Behnam and Moon, Seungwhan and Fe, Zhengcong and Li, Zekang and Zhang, Jinchao and Fen, Yang and Zhou, Jie and Kim, Seokhwan and Liu, Yang and Jin, Di and Papangelis, Alexandros and Gopalakrishnan, Karthik and Hakkani-Tur, Dilek and Damavandi, Babak and Geramifard, Alborz and
  
  Hori, Chiori and Shah, Ankit and Zhang, Chen and Li, Haizhou and Sedoc, João and D’Haro, Luis F. and Banchs, Rafael and Rudnicky, Alexander},
- title = {Overview of the Tenth Dialog System Technology Challenge: DSTC10},
- journal = {IEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing},
- year = 2023,
- pages = {1--14},
- month = aug,
- doi = {10.1109/TASLP.2023.3293030},
- issn = {2329-9290},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-109}
- }