Brief bio

Jungseok Hong is a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) working with Professor John Leonard. Before joining MIT, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota, working with Professor Junaed Sattar. His research is at the intersection of robotics, computer vision, and machine learning. He primarily focuses on improving robotic perception in data-scarce and visually challenging environments using deep learning and probabilistic approaches.

TALK TITLE

Human-robot teaming for complex undersea missions

ABSTRACT

Despite recent advances in autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology, it is still extremely difficult for AUVs to interpret ambiguous perceptual data, make decisions in the face of unforeseen events, and interact with the environment (e.g., manipulating tools and objects). Human divers bring cognitive decision-making, dexterous manipulation, and dynamic replanning when things go wrong. However, human divers can only stay underwater for a short period of time, and underwater missions often pose high risks to human divers. Effective human-robot collaboration can ease these difficulties, further enabling robot autonomy and human efficiency in complex environments.  In this talk, I will consider future opportunities where underwater human divers and robot team members each operate under difficult impairments, yet work together to complete a complex undersea mission. Also, I will briefly touch upon open research problems related to these topics.