Reid Simmons Research Professor Website Office 3213 Newell-Simon Hall Email rsimmons@andrew.cmu.edu Phone (412) 268-2621 Department Robotics Institute Computer Science Department Research Interests Artificial Intelligence Robotics CSD Courses Taught 15482 - Fall, 2024 My research focuses on the area reliable autonomous systems (especially mobile robots) operating in rich, uncertain environments. The goal is to create intelligent systems that can operate autonomously for long periods of time in unstructured, natural environments. This necessitates robots that can plan, reason about uncertainty, diagnose and recover from unanticipated errors, interact with other robots and humans, and learn. I am interested in the use of probabilistic reasoning to explicitly model and plan for uncertainty. I am currently focusing on multi-robot coordination and human-robot social interaction. Multi-Robot Coordination. We are researching issues of how multiple, heterogeneous robots can coordinate to carry out high-level tasks, especially those that cannot be accomplished by a single robot. Issues include having the robots negotiate to dynamically form teams and assign tasks, monitoring each other's performance, and adapting dynamically to changing situations. The work extends traditional three-tiered architectures to multiple robots and extends planning and scheduling algorithms to handle uncertainty and failing plans. Application domains include dexterous, multi-robot large-scale assembly. Human-Robot Social Interaction. The goal here is to make robots more useful and acceptable by enabling them to interact with humans using social rules and conventions. This includes both conversational and spatial social interaction. In the area of conversational interaction, we have developed the roboceptionist, in conjunction with the School of Drama, to have a robot with character and personality interact over long periods of time. In the area of spatial interaction, we are looking at socially appropriate navigation and rhythmic interaction. We are also interested in culturally appropriate interaction. Probabilistic Reasoning in Robotics. We are exploring the use of probabilistic reasoning techniques in controlling autonomous robots. We are investigating methods for making mobile robots more robust and self-reliant, especially using Markov models and partially observable Markov models. Publications Journal Article AIāCARING: National AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups 2024 • AI Magazine • 45(1):124-130 Chernova S, Mynatt E, Rozga A, Simmons R, Yanco H Journal Article Exploring Control Authority Preferences in Robotic Arm Assistance for Power Wheelchair Users 2024 • Actuators • 13(3): Styler BK, Deng W, Simmons R, Admoni H, Cooper R, Ding D Conference HRI '24: Workshop on Aging in Place 2024 • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction • 1344-1345 Moorman N, Zhao M, Admoni H, Simmons R, Gombolay M Conference Multi-Agent Strategy Explanations for Human-Robot Collaboration 2024 • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation • 00:17351-17357 Pandya R, Zhao M, Liu C, Simmons R, Admoni H Conference Learning Human Contribution Preferences in Collaborative Human-Robot Tasks 2023 • CONFERENCE ON ROBOT LEARNING, VOL 229 • 229: Zhao M, Simmons R, Admoni H
Journal Article AIāCARING: National AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups 2024 • AI Magazine • 45(1):124-130 Chernova S, Mynatt E, Rozga A, Simmons R, Yanco H
Journal Article Exploring Control Authority Preferences in Robotic Arm Assistance for Power Wheelchair Users 2024 • Actuators • 13(3): Styler BK, Deng W, Simmons R, Admoni H, Cooper R, Ding D
Conference HRI '24: Workshop on Aging in Place 2024 • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction • 1344-1345 Moorman N, Zhao M, Admoni H, Simmons R, Gombolay M
Conference Multi-Agent Strategy Explanations for Human-Robot Collaboration 2024 • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation • 00:17351-17357 Pandya R, Zhao M, Liu C, Simmons R, Admoni H
Conference Learning Human Contribution Preferences in Collaborative Human-Robot Tasks 2023 • CONFERENCE ON ROBOT LEARNING, VOL 229 • 229: Zhao M, Simmons R, Admoni H