Events

Control for Robot Learning

Speaker: Prof. Todd Murphy

Location: 370 Jay Street, Room 12 FL Room 1201
Videoconference link: https://nyu.zoom.us/j/91961657086

Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Robot learning systems rely on motion synthesis to enable efficient and flexible learning during continuous online deployment. Motion motivated by learning needs can be found throughout natural systems, yet there is surprisingly little known about synthesizing motion to support learning for robotic systems. Moreover, robotic systems will need to collect data autonomously for learning, for instance when isolated for long period of time or when encountering novel environmental features. Learning goals create a distinct set of control-oriented challenges, including how to choose measures as objectives, synthesize real-time control based on these objectives, impose physics-oriented constraints on learning, and produce analyses that certify performance and safety with limited knowledge. This talk will discuss learning tasks that robots encounter, abstractions that enable regulating information content of observations, and recent progress on algorithms for generating action plans that facilitate learning.About the Speaker:
Todd Murphey is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences in the Feinberg School of Medicine, both at Northwestern University. He is additionally the Director of Transformative Research in Northwestern University's Office of Research. He received his Ph.D. in Control and Dynamical Systems from the California Institute of Technology in 2002. His laboratory is part of the Center for Robotics and Biosystems, and his research interests include robotics, control, human-machine interaction, and emergent behavior in dynamical systems. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER award, is a recipient of Northwestern University's Professorship of Teaching Excellence, was a member of the United States Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, served as a Senior Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2014-2018) and as Vice President for the Publication Activities Board in the Robotics and Automation Society (2022-2023), and is a recipient of the IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award.