Michael Erdmann Professor, Computer Science and Robotics Website CMU Scholars Page Office 9203 Gates and Hillman Centers Email me@cmu.edu Phone (412) 268-7883 Department Computer Science Department Administrative Support Person Rosemary Battenfelder Research Interests Artificial Intelligence Robotics CSD Courses Taught 15150 - Spring, 2025 15150 - Spring, 2024 Research Statement I am interested in making robots act purposefully and successfully in a world in which most everything is uncertain. Sensors are noisy, actions are imprecise, and models are faulty. I wish to understand how these uncertainties interact and how to overcome them. My research draws on tools from geometry, mechanics, planning, probability, and topology. Most recently I have explored topological methods for planning and control. Topology allows a system to abstract connectivity properties, filtering out the imprecision caused by uncertainty. For instance, one recent novel topological result is a graph controllability theorem: A system can reach any state in a graph with control uncertainty if and only if the graph's strategy complex is homotopic to a sphere of dimension two less than the number of states in the graph. This controllability result is based on a topological tool known as the Nerve Lemma, which may also be seen as a statement about relations and bipartite graphs. Thinking about uncertainty in robotics therefore leads to thoughts about privacy. One discovery is that homology in relations provides lower bounds on how long an individual can defer de-anonymization. Coupled with the earlier controllability result, one sees how a fully controllable system might obfuscate its strategies and goals. Publications Conference Brief announcement: Stateless computation 2017 • Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing • Part F129314:419-421 Dolev D, Erdmann M, Lutz N, Schapira M, Zair A Preprint Stateless Computation 2016 Dolev D, Erdmann M, Lutz N, Schapira M, Zair A Conference Extrinsic Dexterity: In-Hand Manipulation with External Forces 2014 • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation • 1578-1585 Dafle NC, Rodriguez A, Paolini R, Tang B, Srinivasa SS, Erdmann M, Mason MT, Lundberg I, Staab H, Fuhlbrigge T Conference Regrasping Objects Using Extrinsic Dexterity 2014 • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation • 2560-2560 Dafle NC, Rodriguez A, Paolini R, Tang B, Srinivasa SS, Erdmann M, Mason MT, Lundberg I, Staab H, Fuhlbrigge T Journal Article A Formalism and Method for Representing and Reasoning with Process Models Authored by Subject Matter Experts 2013 • IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering • 25(9):1933-1945 Manuel Gomez-Perez J, Erdmann M, Greaves M, Corcho O
Conference Brief announcement: Stateless computation 2017 • Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing • Part F129314:419-421 Dolev D, Erdmann M, Lutz N, Schapira M, Zair A
Conference Extrinsic Dexterity: In-Hand Manipulation with External Forces 2014 • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation • 1578-1585 Dafle NC, Rodriguez A, Paolini R, Tang B, Srinivasa SS, Erdmann M, Mason MT, Lundberg I, Staab H, Fuhlbrigge T
Conference Regrasping Objects Using Extrinsic Dexterity 2014 • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation • 2560-2560 Dafle NC, Rodriguez A, Paolini R, Tang B, Srinivasa SS, Erdmann M, Mason MT, Lundberg I, Staab H, Fuhlbrigge T
Journal Article A Formalism and Method for Representing and Reasoning with Process Models Authored by Subject Matter Experts 2013 • IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering • 25(9):1933-1945 Manuel Gomez-Perez J, Erdmann M, Greaves M, Corcho O
