Paola Ardón

EDUCATION

Ph.D Candidate in Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, CDT. Expected Graduation - November 2021

Master of Science in Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, CDT. Graduated with Distinction

Master of Science in Computer Vision and Robotics
VIBOT Erasmus Program. Graduated with Distinction

Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering
John Brown University. Graduated cum laude

PUBLICATIONS

2021
P. Ardón, È. Pairet, K.S. Lohan, S. Ramamoorthy, R.P.A. Petrick, Building affordance relations for robotic agents - A review, In Proc. International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 2021.

Ardón, P.; Maria E. Cabrera; Pairet È.; Petrick, R.; Ramamoorthy, S.; Lohan, K. S.; and Maya Cakmak "Affordance-Aware Handovers with Human Arm Mobility Constraints". IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) Presented in ICRA. June 2021. Best Presentation award at Learning for Caregiving Robots (LCR) at ICRA.

2020
Ardón, P.; Pairet È.; Petrick, R.; Ramamoorthy, S.; and Lohan, K. S. "Self-Assessment of Grasp Affordance Transfer". IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). October 2020.

D.A Robb, M. I Ahmad, C. Tiseo, A. C Aracri S.and McConnell, V. Page, C. Dondrup, F. J Chiyah Garcia, HN. Nguyen, È. Pairet, Ardón, P., et al. "Robots in the Danger Zone: Exploring Public Perception through Engagement". In: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. 2020, pp. 93–102.

Y. Carreno, E. Pairet, Ardón, P., Y. Petillot, and R.PA Petrick. "Task Allocation and Planning for Offshore Mission Automation". In: System demonstration at International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). 2020

2019
Ardón, P.; Pairet; È., Petrick, R., Ramamoorthy, S.; and Lohan, K. S. "Learning Grasp Affordance Reasoning through Semantic Relations". IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). To be presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). November 2019.

Pairet, È.; Ardón, P.; Mistry, M.; and Petillot, Y. "Learning Generalisable Coupling Terms for Obstacle Avoidance via Low-dimensional Geometric Descriptors". IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). To be presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). November 2019.

Ardón, P.; Pairet, È.; Petrick, R.; Ramamoorthy, S.; and Lohan, K. S. "Reasoning on Grasp-Action Affordances", in Conf. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. July 2019. Best Paper Award finalist.

Pairet, È.; Ardón, P.; Mistry, M,; and Petillot, Y. "Learning and Composing Primitive Skills for Dual-arm Manipulation", in Conf. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. July 2019. Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary (ARQ) best paper award.

Pairet, È.; Ardón, P.; Liu, X.; Lopes,J.; Hastie, H.; and Lohan, K. S. "A Digital Twin for Human-Robot Interaction", in ACM/IEEE Intl. Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction. March 2019.

2018
Ardón, P.; Pairet, È.; Ramamoorthy, S.; and Lohan, K. S. Towards robust grasps: Using the environment semantics for robotic object affordances. 2018. In AAAI Fall Symposium. Reasoning and Learning in Real-World Systems for Long-Term Autonomy. AAAI Press.

Pairet, È.; Ardón, P.; Brox, F.; Mistry, M.; and Petillot, Y. 2018a. Learning and generalisation of primitives skills towards robust dual-arm manipulation. In AAAI Fall Symposium. Artificial Intelligence for Reasoning and Learning in Real-World Systems for Long-Term Autonomy. AAAI Press.

Ardón P.; Ramamoorthy, S.; Lohan, K.S.. Object affordances by inferring on the surroundings, In Proc. IEEE Workshop on Advance Robotics and its Social Impact, 2018. In press.

Ardón P.; Dragone, M. and Erden, M. S.Reaching and Grasping of Objects by Humanoid Robots through Visual Servoing. 6 Jun 2018 Haptics: Science, Technology, and Applications. Springer, p. 353-365 13 p. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 10894).

RESEARCH PROJECTS

PhD Research on Robotic Object Affordance

Investigate on action affordances for indoor environment objects with the purpose of improving reaching and grasp behaviours.

Master thesis on Reasoning Grasp-Action Affordances

Design and implement a reasoning technique for object grasp-action affordances.

Master thesis on Visual Servoing and Grasping

Design and implement a visual servoing system on ALdebaran-Softbank platform for Peper robot to grasp objects.

SLAM and Object Recognition - Pepper Robot

Group project - Implemented visual SLAM with object recognition based on ERL - service robots competition rules.

Lunabot NASA Project

Group project -Lunabotics Mining Competition Project (LMC) organized by NASA. Designed a fully functional prototype of a mining robot that works on the lunar environment collecting regolith. Worked on the electrical system: wireless communication, control and autonomy. Main focus on the IMU system, and autonomy software design.

Solar Panel Heater

Group project - Designed the electrical system for a solar panel heater. In charge of the design of: Solar tracking system, settings, monitoring temperature, and user interface features.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Royal Society Summer exhibition (RSSE 2019)

Along with the ORCA team we exhibited our work in an attempt to get the new generation's attention on science.

Universities of Scotland, Scottish Parliament (Scotland's 19)

Along with Prof. Helen Hastie we shared the research that is being done in the Centre. Many of the people that we talked with knew the good reputation of the program and happily shared with us their ideas about new projects and how robotics and artificial intelligence might help develop those.

Reasoning and Learning in Real-World Systems for Long-Term Autonomy - AAAI Fall Symposium Series (LTA 2018)

Our work at the Artifical intelligence FSS. The symposium series was composed of eight different sessions, each of them with at least 16 presentations of academics and industry interested on improving our technologies in the area of artificial intelligence. The sessions lasted for three days on which not only presentations of the selected papers were held but also very interesting keynotes sharing their views of the field. During these three days, the presentations promoted questions ranging from technical to ethical subjects making the attendees to actively participate and passionately engage in the sessions.

Edinburgh Centre for Robotics Annual Conference

I presented the results of my master thesis at the conference. The conference took place in the John McIntyre Conference centre at the University of Edinburgh. It was attended by over 120 students, academics and industry partners.

IEEE Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts (ARSO 2018)

I presented my Ph.D proposal on robotic affordances at the workshop. The workshop discussed advanced robotics R&D and its implications to economic and social systems, the focus was particularly on the impact of AI and AI empowered autonomous systems.

Pitch Master Class

I assisted to the pitch master class at Heriot-Watt University in order to improve the presentation skills for both: Long presentations and pitch talks.

TEDx talk

I assisted on the setup and showcases of different robotic platforms at the TEDx talk. Sethu Vijayakumar was giving a talk entitled 'Sending your robot to Mars? List of things to pack.'

International Summer School on Deep Learning (ISSoDL 2018)

I assisted to the International Summer School on Deep Learning at Gdansk University of Technology.'

EuroHaptics Conference (EuroHaptics 2018)

I presented the work ”Reaching and Grasping of Objects by Humanoid Robot through Visual Servoing”.'

Creativity at Home workshop

I assisted to the two day Rocket Fuel workshop in Heriot-Watt University in order to improve the creativity skill for research purposes.