News of the IDM Lab
2023
- Alumna Jiaoyang Li (now a professor) received an ICAPS
Best Dissertation Award 2023 and the
Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation
Award 2023 by the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and
Multiagent System (IFAAMAS, that runs the AAMAS
Conference). Congratulations!
- Alumna Jiaoyang Li (now a professor) received the USC Viterbi School of
Engineering best dissertation award, called the William F. Ballhaus, Jr. Prize for
Excellence in Graduate Engineering Research. Thanks William Ballhaus, and
congratulations Jiaoyang!
- Our paper "A. Nash, K. Daniel, S. Koenig and A. Felner, Theta*: Any-Angle
Path Planning on Grids, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI),
2007" received the 2023 Classic Paper ("Test of Time") Award of
AAAI. Thanks AAAI!
- Our paper "T. Huang, V. Shivashankar, M. Caldara, J. Durham, J. Li,
B. Dilkina, and S. Koenig, Deadline-Aware Multi-Agent Tour Planning,
Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and
Scheduling (ICAPS), 2023" received the ICAPS-23 Best Student Paper Honorable
Mention. Congratulations to Taoan and all his co-authors!
- Our research group co-organizes the
League of Robot Runners, a MAPF competition. Thanks to all
participants, organizers, and our sponsor Amazon Robotics!
- Sven co-organized the International Conference on Automated Planning and
Scheduling (ICAPS) 2023 as program co-chair. Thanks to all authors, the 22
SPC members, and the 191 PC members!
- Ben-Gurion University invited Sven for a one-month visit. Thanks to our
collaborators at Ben-Gurion University and the Technion for hosting the
visit!
- We received Amazon Research Award (ARA) equivalent funding from
Amazon. Thanks Amazon Robotics!
- The IDM-lab hosted professor Roman Bartak (Charles University, Czech
Republic) as research visitor. Thank you for visiting!
2022
- Our paper "E. Boyarski, S.-H. Chan, D. Atzmon, A. Felner and S. Koenig, On
Merging Agents in Multi-Agent Pathfinding Algorithms, Proceedings of the
Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS), 2022" received the SoCS-22 Best
Student Paper Award. Congratulations to Eli, Shao-Hung, Dor, and Ariel!
- Our group members got four papers accepted to the AAAI Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) despite an acceptance rate of only 14.96
percent. Congratulations everyone!
- Ph.D. student Jiaoyang Li accepted an offer as Assistant
Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Congratulations! More than one
third of our Ph.D. students have now accepted tenure-track positions in
academia (and are still professors).
- Ph.D. student Shao-Hung Chan received a research fellowship from Ben-Gurion
University to visit the research group of Prof. Ariel Felner for six
months. Congratulations!
- Undergraduate student Shuyang (Jessie) Zhang received a Computer Science Award for
Outstanding Research. Her research will be published in SoCS 2022.
Congratulations to Jessie, Jiaoyang, Taoan, and Bistra!
- Undergraduate student Yutong Li received a Provost's Research Fellowship
for Summer 2022. Congratulations!
- Visiting undergraduate student Cheng Ge published his research in ICAPS
2023, mentored by Ph.D. student Han Zhang. He chose MIT to pursue a
Ph.D. degree. Congratulations to Cheng and Han!
- Sven became Dean's Professor. Thanks to the Dean and USC!
- The IDM-lab hosted professor Carlos Hernandez (Universidad San Sebastian, Chile),
professor Pavel Surynek (Czech Technical University, Czech Republic),
graduate student Orazio Rillo (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Lausanne = EPFL) and undergraduate student Cheng Ge (Tsinghua
University, China). Thank you for visiting!
- We received an Amazon Research Award (ARA). Thanks Amazon Robotics!
2021
- Our group members got four papers accepted to the AAAI Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) despite an acceptance rate of only 21.39
percent. Congratulations everyone!
- Our system demonstration "Scalable Rail Planning and Replanning: Winning
the 2020 Flatland Challenge" received the most audience votes for the system
demonstration award at the International Conference on Automated Planning
and Scheduling (ICAPS) 2021. The video
is lots of fun! Congratulations to Jiaoyang, Yi, Shao-Hung, and Mike as well as
their other advisors!
- Alumnus Hang Ma (now a professor) received the ICAPS
Best Dissertation Award 2021. He was also runner-up for the Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation
Award 2020 by the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and
Multiagent System (IFAAMAS, that runs the AAMAS
Conference). Congratulations!
- An updated version of the software that won the Flatland challenge in 2020
won again in the extended Flatland competition in 2021. Congratulations to
Jiaoyang, Yi, Shao-Hung, and Mike as well as their other advisors! This
year, Mike did almost all of the work. A special shout-out to him!
- Undergraduate student Shuyang (Jessie) Zhang was a CURVE Symposium winner
for her poster on "Machine Learning-Guided Prioritized Planning for Multi-Agent
Path Finding." Congratulations to Jessie, Jiaoyang, and Taoan!
- Ph.D. student Jiaoyang Li received a Computer Science Best Research
Assistant Award. Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Jiaoyang Li received a WISE Merit Award. Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Jiaoyang Li proposed her dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Sven became a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery
(ACM). Thanks ACM!
- Sven was invited to serve on the council of the Computing Community
Consortium (CCC) of the Computing Research Association. Thanks CCC!
- We received an Amazon Research Award (ARA). Thanks Amazon Robotics!
2020
- Team An_Old_Driver,
consisting of three of our Ph.D. students plus one student from Monash
University, used multi-agent path-finding technology to reach the highest
score in both rounds of the NeurIPS-20 Flatland Challenge, a railway
scheduling competition which was held in partnership with German and Swiss
railway companies. They outperformed all other entries in both tracks,
including all reinforcement learning entries, to win overall first place in both
rounds. According to the organizers, there were more than 700 participants
from 51 countries making more than 2,000
submissions, see here for more information and
here for the USC press release. Congratulations to Jiaoyang, Yi, Shao-Hung,
and Mike!
- Our paper "H. Zhang, J. Li, P. Surynek, S. Koenig and S. Kumar,
Multi-Agent Path Finding with Mutex Propagation, Proceedings of the
International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2020"
received the ICAPS-20 Outstanding Student Paper Award. Congratulations to
Han, Jiaoyang, Pavel, and Satish!
- Our paper "H. Xu, K. Sun, S. Koenig and S. Kumar, Decision-Tree
Learning-Inspired Dynamic Variable Ordering for the Weighted CSP, Proceedings
of the Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS), 2020" received the SoCS-20
Best Paper Honorable Mention. (There were one winner and one honorable
mention.) Congratulations to Hong, Kexuan, and Satish!
- Our class project on
multi-agent path finding was chosen as Model AI Assignment by the
Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence.
Congratulations to Wolfgang and Jiaoyang!
- Our paper "J. Li, A. Tinka, S. Kiesel, J. Durham, S. Kumar and S. Koenig,
Lifelong Multi-Agent Path Finding in Large-Scale Warehouses, Proceedings of
the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems (AAMAS), 2020", which is joint work with Amazon Robotics, received
press coverage,
including in the ACM TechNews. Congratulations to Jiaoyang, Andrew, Scott,
Joey, and Satish!
- Ph.D. student Jiaoyang Li was awarded a WiSE Qualcomm Top-Off Fellowship.
Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Liron Cohen defended his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Sven became a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE). Thanks IEEE!
- Sven was elected to the AAAS Steering Group of the Information, Computing, and
Communication section as member-at-large. Thanks AAAS members!
- Sven was elected to the Board of Directors of the International
Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS). Thanks
IFAAMAS members and AAMAS attendees!
- Sven was offered a Lady Davis Visiting Professorship at the Technion
(Israel Institute of Technology). Thanks to all colleagues at the Technion!
Unfortunately, it looks like the COVID-19 pandemic might prevent me from
visiting.
- We received Amazon Research Award (ARA) equivalent funding from
Amazon. Thanks Amazon Robotics!
- The IDM-lab hosted graduate student Yoni Sher (Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel) as research visitor. Thank you for visiting!
2019
- Our multi-agent path-finding team (a joint venture between AI and
robotics) received a Technology Commercialization Award from the USC Stevens
Center for Innovation Technology. Congratulations to Nora, Satish, Hang,
Hong, Jiaoyang, Liron, Tansel, and Wolfgang!
- Master's student Jiangxing Wang received the Best Research Award from
the Computer Science Department. His research was published in AAMAS
2019. Congratulations to Jiangxing and Satish!
- Our group members got four papers accepted to the AAAI Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) despite an acceptance rate of only 16.21
percent. Congratulations everyone!
- Our paper "S. Koenig and M. Likhachev, D* Lite, Proceedings of the AAAI
Conference of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2002" received the 2019 Classic
Paper ("Test of Time") Honorable Mention of AAAI. (There were one winner and
one honorable mention.) Thanks AAAI!
- Ph.D. student Hang Ma became an assistant professor at Simon Fraser
University. Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Tansel Uras defended his dissertation
successfully. Congratulations!
- Monash University invited Sven for a three-week visit. Thanks to all
collaborators there, especially from their optimization group!
- We received an Amazon Research Award (ARA). Thanks Amazon Robotics!
- The IDM-lab hosted Dr. Jihee Han (Korea University, Korea) and graduate student
Moli Yang (University of Melbourne, Australia) as research visitors. Thank you for
visiting!
2018
- Master's student Kexuan (Kiana) Sun received the Best Research Award from
the Computer Science Department. Her research was published in CPAIOR
2018. She chose USC to pursue a Ph.D. degree. Congratulations to Kexuan,
Satish, and Hong!
- Undergraduate student Cheng Cheng received a Computer Science Award for
Outstanding Research. Her research was published in ISAIM 2018.
Congratulations to Cheng, Satish, and Hong!
- Ph.D. student Liron Cohen proposed his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Hong Xu defended his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Our group members got four papers accepted to the International
Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) despite an acceptance
rate of only 20.64 percent. Congratulations everyone!
- Sven co-organized the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) 2018 as conference co-chair. Thanks to all
authors, the 22 area chairs, the 101 SPC members and the 427 PC members!
- Sven co-organized the International Conference on Automated Planning and
Scheduling (ICAPS) 2018 as program co-chair. Thanks to all authors and the
202 PC members!
- Monash University invited Sven for a six-week visit. Thanks to all
collaborators there, especially from their optimization group!
- We received an Amazon Research Award (ARA). Thanks Amazon Robotics!
- The IDM-lab hosted graduate student Eli Boyarski (Ben-Gurion University,
Israel) as research visitor. Thank you for visiting!
2017
- Ph.D. student Tansel Uras proposed his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Undergraduate student Zhi Wang received a Computer Science Award
for Outstanding Research. His research was published in ICAPS
2018. He chose UC San Diego to pursue a Ph.D. degree. Congratulations to Zhi
and Satish!
- Sven became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS). Thanks AAAS!
- Sven received the Computer Science and Engineering Undergraduate Teaching
Award from the IEEE Computer Society "for his commitment to engaging
students through project-based learning and mentoring that cultivates a
passion for artificial intelligence." Thanks IEEE!
- Sven was one of three AAAI-17 outstanding senior program committee
members (out of 325 senior program committee members). Thanks AAAI!
- The IDM-lab hosted Prof. Ariel Felner (Ben-Gurion University, Israel: 1
semester), Prof. Carlos Hernandez (Andres Bello National University, Chile:
2.5 months), Prof. Michael Rovatsos (University of Edinburgh, UK: 2.5
weeks), and Dr. Masoumeh Mansouri (Orebro Universitet, Sweden: 2 weeks) as
research visitors. Thank you for visiting!
2016
- Our paper "W. Hoenig, S. Kumar, L. Cohen, H. Ma, H. Xu, N. Ayanian and
S. Koenig, Multi-Agent Path Finding with Kinematic Constraints,
Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and
Scheduling (ICAPS), 2016" received the Outstanding Paper Award in the Robotics
Track of ICAPS. Congratulations to Wolfgang, Satish, Liron, Hang, Hong and
Nora!
- Alumnus William Yeoh (now a professor) was selected by IEEE Intelligent
Systems as one of the "AI's 10 to Watch" 2015 ("10 young stars in the field
of AI," chosen every two years from researchers around the
world). Congratulations!
- Ph.D. students Tansel Uras and Liron Cohen received Best Teaching
Assistant Awards. Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Hong Xu proposed his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Undergraduate student Nolan Miller received a Computer Science Award
for Outstanding Research. Congratulations to Nolan and Satish!
- Sven was elected ACM SIGAI chair. Thanks ACM SIGAI members!
- Sven continued as a distinguished speaker for the Association of Computing
Machinery (ACM) for his second (and necessarily last) term. Thanks ACM!
2015
- Undergraduate student David Zhang received a Computer Science Award for
Excellence in Research. His research was published in AAMAS 2016.
Congratulations to David and Satish!
- Sven received the Dean's Award for Innovation in Teaching and
Education. Thanks students and colleagues!
- Sven co-organized the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
2015 as program co-chair, which received 1991 submissions - more than every
previous AAAI conference. Thanks to all authors, the 48 activity chairs, the
89 SPC members and the 974 PC members!
2014
- Ph.D. student Xiaoming Zheng defended his dissertation
successfully. Congratulations!
- Ph.D. student Tansel Uras received the Best Research Assistant Award!
Congratulations!
- Undergraduate student Sangmook Jung received a Computer Science Award
for Excellence in Research. His research was published in ICAPS
2014. Congratulations to Sanmook and Satish!
2013
- Ph.D. student Xiaoxun Sun defended his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Sven became a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence (AAAI). Thanks AAAI!
- Sven was elected to the executive council of the Association for the Advancement of
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Thanks AAAI members!
- Sven became a distinguished speaker for the Association of Computing
Machinery (ACM). Thanks ACM!
- A USC student team coached by Sven and others placed highly among all
North American teams at the world finals of the International Collegiate
Programming Contest (directly behind CMU and tied with MIT and
Stanford). Congratulations to all students on the team!
- The IDM-lab hosted Prof. Carlos Hernandez Ulloa (Andres Bello National
University, Chile) as research visitor. Thank you for visiting!
2012
- Ph.D. student Alex Nash defended his dissertation successfully.
Congratulations!
- Sven received the Director's Award for Collaborative Integration as
program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the second
year in a row. Thanks NSF!
- The IDM-lab hosted Dr. Marcello Cirillo (Orebro University, Sweden) and
graduate student Giuseppe Caggianese (University of Basilicata, Italy) as
research visitors. Thank you for visiting!
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