
Assistant Professor has had two research papers on robot learning accepted at ICRA 2024
Stas Tiomkin, assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science in the Edward E. Whitacre College of Engineering at Texas Tech University has had two research papers on robot learning accepted at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).
ICRA ranked as the #1 conference in robotics by Google Scholar, showcases groundbreaking advancements in the field. Tiomkins work, along with his collaborators, pushes the boundaries of robot learning, acoustic wave manipulation, and reward design for autonomous systems.
Paper 1: "Acoustic Wave Manipulation Through Sparse Robotic Actuation"
Authors: Tristan Shah*, Noam Smilovich*, Samer Gerges, Feruza Amirkulova, Stas Tiomkin
(corresponding author)
(*PhD students at TTU, equal contribution)
Key Idea: This work explores how robots can manipulate acoustic waves—a novel problem
with applications in artificial materials, ultrasonic tools, and energy harvesting.
The proposed data-driven method surpasses existing learning-based approaches in both
solution quality and computational efficiency.
Paper 2: "SuPLE: Robot Learning with Lyapunov Rewards"
Authors: Phu Nguyen, Daniel Polani, Stas Tiomkin (corresponding author)
Key Idea: This research introduces SuPLE (Sum of Positive Lyapunov Exponents) as
a system-inherent reward function for robot learning, eliminating the need for external
assumptions. This approach paves the way for more efficient and generalizable robot
learning strategies.
Congratulations to Dr. Tiomkin and his collaborators on this remarkable achievement!