Machines that see — and model what they see.
An embodied system is only as good as its picture of the world. This group builds the perception stack — depth, detection, segmentation, and multimodal fusion — and the predictive world models that let an autonomous machine act on what it perceives: in degraded real-world conditions, and on the device itself.
How this group works.
The methods and commitments that define the lab's approach to the problem.
Fuse what one sensor can't see
LiDAR, thermal, and RGB combined for perception that holds up in smoke, glare, and the dark — where any single modality fails.
Perception at the edge
Compressed, scheduled models running in real time inside the airframe's power and thermal budget — no cloud round-trip in the control loop.
From pixels to prediction
Self-supervised models that don't just label a scene but predict how it evolves — the substrate planning and control build on.
Outside the lab
Perception measured where it matters: motion blur, occlusion, novel objects, and the long tail that breaks benchmark-tuned models.
Open problems we're pursuing.
The questions the lab is taking on now — each a gap between what works in a demo and what works in the world.
Monocular depth on the edge
How far can one camera and a small model go for distance estimation, and where must active sensing take over?
Open-vocabulary detection
Recognizing objects the system was never trained on — table stakes for autonomy in unstructured environments.
Cross-modal calibration
Keeping LiDAR, thermal, and RGB aligned in space and time on a moving platform, without hand-tuning.
See it run — on your device.
The group's perception stack, live in your browser: monocular depth and object detection running on-device via WebGPU, on a sample scene or your own webcam. No cloud, no install.
Lead this group, or join it.
Step into the principal-investigator role through the Physical AI Investigator Program — an independent appointment with PI authority — or join the group as a research intern.
Physical AI Investigator Program
An independent investigator appointment and PI authority to lead a research line in this group — built to position you for early-career funding.
Research in this group can spin out into a company — explore Launch →