THE MAGAZINE OF CMU’S SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE WINTER 2019 ISSUE 13.2 MARTIAL HEBERT THE SIXTH DEAN OF SCS Looking Ahead To create smart walls, researchers in the HCII attached a lattice of thin copper wire to ordinary walls and coated them with a diamond grid of a common, nickel-based conductive paint. They connected both a mutual capacitance- sensing circuit board and radio frequency-sensing circuit board to these conductives, allowing users to interact with Wall++ in two distinct modes. If these walls could talk… The mutual capacitance mode detects a user’s hands and body With the transformation of many pose, similar to the multifinger everyday objects into smart touchscreen technology found in appliances, more and more space tablets and phones, which could in our homes is being taken over allow gestures over Wall++ to Computer Science at CMU by specialized gadgetry and wall seamlessly close blinds, dim lights underpins divergent fields and fixtures. We currently choose or turn up music. In the second endeavors in today’s world, between form and function. But mode, Wall++ senses electro- all of which LINK SCS to profound what if we could seamlessly blend magnetic signals from electrical advances in art, culture, nature, all of these smart technologies appliances within the room to map the sciences and beyond. into our environment? their location and on/off state, which could eventually provide Researchers at Carnegie Mellon real-time data from devices such as University’s Human-Computer heart monitors and insulin pumps. Interaction Institute (HCII) along with Disney Research Pittsburgh “Walls are large, so we knew that have found one potential solution in whatever technique we invented for a ubiquitous but often-overlooked smart walls would have to be low feature — the standard wall. cost,” said Yang Zhang, a Ph.D. student in the HCII. Overall, the cost “Walls are usually the largest is $20 per square meter, more than surface area in a room,” said Chris a regular paint job but modest Harrison, assistant professor in the compared to other integrated smart HCII, “yet we don’t make much technologies like the smart board, use of them other than to separate which retail for around $1,500. spaces, and perhaps hold up pictures and shelves.” This new smart wall technology, dubbed Wall++, takes advantage of necessary infrastructure by creating a single high-tech installation. cvr2 THE LINK The Link Winter 2019 | Issue 13.2 The Link is the magazine of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, published for alumni, students, faculty, staff and friends. Copyright 2019 Carnegie Mellon University. All rights reserved. Publisher Martial Hebert contents Editor Kevin O’Connell 4 Dean’s Message Contributing Writers Susie Cribbs (DC 2000, 2006), 6 Explorer: Mining the Power Melissa Curtis (DC 2020), of Autonomous Robots Niki Kapsambelis, Kevin O’Connell, Chris Quirk, Mark Roth, 12 CS Idea Triggers First Cristina Rouvalis, Byron Spice Kidney-Liver Transplant Swap Photography Jessica Bernstein-Wax, 14 New SCS Dean Reflects Michael Henninger, Rebecca Kiger, on the Past, Looks to the Future Elan Mizrahi, Kevin O’Connell, Matt Wein 18 The Pretty Good Race Is an Design Vicki Crowley (A 1996) SCS Tradition that Endures Office of the Dean 20 New Tools for Quantum Computing Gates Center for Computer Science and Probing Its Theoretical Limits Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue 24 Research Snapshot: Pittsburgh, PA 15213 cs.cmu.edu Computer Vision Looks Around the Bend Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, age, sexual orientation, 26 Alumni Connections gender identity, religion, creed, ancestry, belief, veteran status, or genetic information. Furthermore, Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate 28 Alumni Profile: Peg Calder and is required not to discriminate in violation of federal, state, or local laws or executive orders. Inquiries concerning the application of and compliance 32 Anniversary3: Comp Bio 10, with this statement should be directed to the university ombudsman, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, HCII 25, Robotics Institute 40 telephone 412-268-1018. Obtain general information about Carnegie Mellon University by calling 412-268-2000. [email protected] 36 SCS in the News 2 THE LINK WINTER 2019 3 Dean’s FROM THE DEAN Message It’s Always Interesting his year marks my It may sound a bit utopian, but it’s much a high level of intellectual freedom that 34th at CMU. And I am deeper than that. And it’s very unusual. is truly exceptional. The excellence of our very pleased to now be This issue of The Link features students is unmatched, but even with serving as the Dean of articles on our people working on topics all these incredible minds, things would SCS. In some ways, I feel that range from the theoretical potential of not work as they do if we did not have like I’ve just had my first quantum computing to the development this culture of being interested in many day all over again. of physical systems in computer vision different things — especially outside of I keep telling people that even though capable of seeing the unseeable around our own areas of expertise. I’ve been here a long time, I still have corners. It’s fantastic. We show how So even though I’m not starting anew, Tan enormous amount to learn. CMU applying algorithms in medicine helps technically, there’s a lot for me to learn truly is an amazing place in terms of match organ donors in ways never here. You always need to know what you the variety of research and work we before conceived, and we demonstrate don’t know. do. From the most fundamental to the how we continue to lead the world in And it’s always interesting. most applied — our work transforms a robotics — this time underground — by staggering breadth of topics. designing and constructing robots Down one hallway we have people using the newest and most innovative doing incredible work on the theoretical techniques in the world. foundations of AI, alongside people doing One thing remains clear: We have the technical and mechanical — designing always been allergic to people putting working physical systems. In between, we themselves in boxes. Martial Hebert have people working with social scientists This kind of siloed view of the Dean, School of Computer Science and psychologists to better understand world really doesn’t exist here. I’m not human interaction. All of this — an entirely sure why, but it’s simply not part incredible spectrum of ideas — working of our culture. We attract the opposite. independently and yet also together. We bring together the collaborators and multidisciplinary minds to create 4 THE LINK WINTER 2019 5 Explorer: Mining the Power of Autonomous Robots Mark Roth n the end, it wasn’t even close. After the first leg of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Subterranean (Sub-T) Challenge, the team from Carnegie Mellon and Oregon State universities blew away the competition. The CMU-Oregon State team, Explorer, used I wheeled ground robots and aerial drones to perform a simulated search-and-rescue mission inside two coal mine shafts just south of Pittsburgh. The team racked up 25 points, more than twice that of its closest competitor, CoStar, led by California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The event, called the Tunnel Circuit, was the first of three missions the teams will undertake over the next two years. The next leg, slated for February 2020, will be a simulated urban rescue scenario at a location yet to be chosen, which could involve such obstacles The Explorer team’s as steps and shafts. The third competition will be a simulated cave wheeled ground robot rescue. The challenge culminates in a final event in August 2021, navigated the mine shaft on its way to victory when the winner will receive DARPA’s $2 million grand prize. in phase 1 of DARPA’s Sub-T Challenge. 6 THE LINK WINTER 2019 7 The Explorer team made the risky decision to custom design their robots rather than adapt existing ones, as most of their competitors did. through a one-meter-by-one-meter space. leaders in creating groundbreaking robots, from The large wheels turned out to be a valuable a snakelike robot that can look for earthquake advantage, because they could slog through deep survivors to a robotic arm that can obey brain signals. mud and climb over pipes or other objects. More than 30 years ago, CMU’s William “Red” Scherer also noted that the team designed the Whittaker designed the robots used to explore and aerial drones to have extra strong thrust, so they take samples in the damaged Three Mile Island could overcome turbulence in the mineshaft. nuclear reactor. And, of course, in 2007 a CMU team Kevin Pluckter (CS 2019) “We also overlapped the props to get a lot won DARPA’s Urban Challenge — the autonomous helped design the interface that of motor packed into a smaller area,” he said. vehicle challenge. It maneuvered its robot across the connected him to the machines. The second factor that gave the Explorer team finish line 19 minutes ahead of the next challenger, an edge was practice. For eight hours each day kick-starting the now thriving autonomous vehicle The Tunnel Circuit took place this past August in the month leading up to the competition, the industry and bringing a fresh infusion of applicants at two experimental coal mines run by the National Explorer team tested its robots in a tourist coal to CMU’s robotics programs.