Through its robot-making and machine-learning proficiency, York University is raising its profile in the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the winter of 2018, York hosted the FIRST Robotics Competition, where high school students’ robots squared off against each other, and by spring was set to host the 31st Canadian Conference on AI, which is sponsored by Vision: Science to Application. Building for the future, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Lassonde School of Engineering is creating an AI specialization in its graduate program, and is set to offer a professional degree program focused on AI. Under Professor John Tsotsos, a Distinguished Research Professor and Canada Research Chair in Computational Vision, students are building visually-guided mobile robotics – specifically, a person-following robot that can absorb visual information and act on it.
This robot uses deep learning in challenging situations, including blockages, changes in target appearance or positioning changes, such as crouching. The video shows how the robot follows the target.