Robotics Seminar: Byung-Cheol Min (Purdue University), Adaptive Human Multi-Robot Systems and Robot Learning

Content

Speaker

Byung-Cheol Min (Purdue University)

Abstract

Robotics is rapidly evolving to address challenges in dynamic, human-centric environments. However, enabling robots to collaborate effectively with humans and adapt to diverse individuals, tasks, conditions, and preferences remains a significant challenge. This talk will focus on two key research areas addressing these issues: human multi-robot systems and robot learning. The first part of the talk will explore human multi-robot systems, highlighting strategies for effective collaboration between humans and robot teams. I will introduce a dataset developed to advance research in this field and discuss our work on task allocation, including initial assignment, which accounts for diverse team capabilities and attributes, and dynamic allocation, which enables real-time adaptation based on human state and performance. The second part will focus on robot learning, aiming to enhance personalization and usability for diverse users. I will present our research on preference-based learning for personalized interactions, learning-from-demonstration frameworks where robots learn directly from human demonstrations, and large language model-driven reasoning and learning techniques that enable multi-robot formation using only high-level contextual instructions from users.

Bio

Dr. Byung-Cheol Min is an Associate Professor and University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Computer and Information Technology at Purdue University. He is the inaugural director of the Purdue Applied AI Research Center and leads the SMART Lab. His research interests include human-robot interaction, robot learning, and multi-robot systems, with a recent focus on adaptive human multi-robot systems and foundation model-based robot reasoning and learning. Dr. Min received the NSF CAREER Award (2019) and university honors, including the Polytechnic Outstanding Faculty Award in Discovery (2019), the CIT Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (2019), and the Polytechnic Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration Award (2021). He was named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar in 2021. His research has been supported by NSF, NIFA, NIJ, and KIAT. Dr. Min earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 2014 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in 2015.