Dr. Saleha had investigated the problem of getting a team of autonomous robots to collaborate in a complex dynamic environment
HABIB UNIVERSITY: Habib University’s Assistant Professor of Computer Science Ms. Syeda Saleha Raza will be swapping her title with “Dr.” after successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis on November 10, 2015 at a ceremony held in the Faculty of Computer Science (FCS) Board Room at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) City Campus.
Her dissertation, titled “TEAM LEARNING FROM DEMONSTRATION: A Framework to Build Collaboration in a Team of Agents via Imitation”, examined the effectiveness of imitation learning in helping multiple autonomous agents collaborate.
As part of her PhD, Dr. Saleha Raza simulated a team of robots and taught them how to play soccer through imitation. She “taught” the robots soccer via demonstrations through keyboard to guide each robot during virtual soccer matches. By archiving all the moves made during those games in a database, she was able to help robots “learn” and use the best collaborative moves they could make in any given situation. All the robots were autonomous agents who had to take decisions independently given the scenario they were in.
Dr. Saleha, as a part of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at IBA, has already been actively involved in developing a team of simulated soccer robots – called Karachi Koalas – which was the first Pakistani team to participate in World RoboCup Soccer Simulation 3D league since 2011 and was ranked in top 5 in RoboCup 2015.
Dr. Saleha’s research has wide applications in multi-robot environments like search and rescue and automated logistics; in computer games to train intelligent computer players; and even in “smart” traffic signals that can direct the flow of traffic to minimize traffic jams.
We congratulate Dr. Saleha Raza on the completion of her PhD, and look forward to the valuable knowledge she brings to Habib University.
