- Visiting_residents - Australian Centre for Robotics

[Everybody at ACFR] J04 Coffee Machine Temporarily Out of Service
by Australian Centre For Robotics Administration 29 Jul '26

29 Jul '26

Hi everyone, Please be advised that the coffee machine in J04 will be unavailable from approximately 11:00am tomorrow Thursday 30 July, while it undergoes urgent servicing and repairs. At this stage, we expect the machine to be out of service for up to 10 business days, although we are hopeful it will be back in operation sooner. We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding while this essential maintenance is carried out. Best regards, Sabrina Sabrina Asri | Senior Admin Officer The University of Sydney Faculty of Engineering, Australian Centre for Robotics Rose Street Building J04 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 +61 2 9351 7126 | sabrina.asri(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:sabrina.asri@sydney.edu.au> | sydney.edu.au<http://sydney.edu.au/> CRICOS 00026A TEQSA PRV12057 This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments. Please think of our environment and only print this email if necessary. _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] ACFR Seminar Series: Raghav Mishra - Structured Diffusion for Robot Control
by Sabrina Asri 28 Jul '26

28 Jul '26

Faculty of Engineering ACFR Seminar Series [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260727/44/a0/ac/85/83de99ae1318da0a…] [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260727/88/64/c9/50/0a1d7f025e3726d3…] Structured Diffusion for Robot Control Presented by Raghav Mishra Date: Thursday, 30 July 2026, at 1:00 pm AEST Venue: ACFR seminar area, J04 level 2: Rose St Building<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/9mAUCgZ0N1im6OKEjcPcwf4SUPo?domain=t…> Zoom ID: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/s/87306457455<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/n_gLCjZ1N7i3EKDowsGfKfmUW_k?domain=t…> Abstract: Diffusion models have demonstrated strong performance as imitation policies and motion planners in robot learning. However, diffusion models generally involve hours of training black box neural networks from expert data. In this talk, I'll discuss our recent work on imposing structure on diffusion by viewing it as a modular plug-and-play architecture that can incorporate diverse target distribution specifications, sources of refinement, and inference-time modifications. We show how to enforce constraints on diffusion planners, perform imitation learning in milliseconds without any training, and perform inference-time neural diffusion policy editing. Bio: Raghav is a PhD researcher in robot control and planning at the Australian Centre for Robotics supervised by Prof. Ian Manchester. He received a Bachelors and Masters in Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Queensland in 2021. He is a part of the ARIAM Hub and is currently working with Reach Robotics, an industry partner, on underwater mobile manipulation. [Register for Event >]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/QqeZCk81N9trl8A2Rf4h5fG9qgO?domain=t…> [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260727/2e/8d/c7/1c/1c70baef8b350e38…] [Web Site]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/sPa3CmO5gluAXB8y7T0sBfRBg76?domain=t…> [LinkedIn]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/xDiJCnx1jniKwAg91cjtmfJH3jc?domain=t…> [X]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Sv-dCoV1kpfB9j521HjuWfpNVPs?domain=t…> [YouTube]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/w7keCp81lrtvk1q4Ji1CxfGwzYS?domain=t…> Copyright © 2026 The University of Sydney Please add acfr.admin(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:acfr.admin@sydney.edu.au> to your address book or senders safe list to make sure you continue to see our emails in the future. Cricos Code 00026A TEQSA PRV12057 Disclaimer<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/oo63Cq71mwfzBKnYxczFYfE96kf?domain=t…> | Privacy statement<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/SE-_Cr81nyt1MP7QzTPHmf4Dbl9?domain=t…> | _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] J18 Scheduled Glass Replacement Works and Temporary Lift Disruption
by Australian Centre For Robotics Administration 27 Jul '26

27 Jul '26

Dear J18 Building Occupants, Please be advised that glass repair works will be undertaken within the building to replace a shattered glass panel. Work Schedule * Wednesday, 29 July 2026: Installation of holding brackets, removal of broken glass, and installation of new glass in silicone. * Thursday, 30 July 2026: Removal of holding brackets and completion of works. Work Hours * Works will commence at 7:00am on both days. * The contractor expects the works to take approximately one hour each day, with all activities anticipated to be completed by 8:30am at the latest. Impact to Occupants * The lift will be temporarily out of service while the works are being carried out. * Every effort has been made to schedule the works before peak building occupancy to minimise disruption. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation while these essential repairs are completed. If you have any questions, please let us know. Best regards, Sabrina Sabrina Asri | Senior Admin Officer The University of Sydney Faculty of Engineering, Australian Centre for Robotics Rose Street Building J04 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 +61 2 9351 7126 | sabrina.asri(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:sabrina.asri@sydney.edu.au> | sydney.edu.au<http://sydney.edu.au/> CRICOS 00026A TEQSA PRV12057 This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments. Please think of our environment and only print this email if necessary. _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] Casual Technical Officer in TSS AMME team
by Pieter van Goor 27 Jul '26

27 Jul '26

Hi all, TSS is planning to recruit a casual technical officer for Semester 2 to support the MTRX laboratory (J13-330). The position description is attached. Ideally, the successful candidate will be available to work at least 7 hours per week (during business hours), with the possibility of working up to 3 days per week. If you are an HDR student in mechatronics or have recently submitted your thesis, you may wish to consider this opportunity to get some work experience. Best, Pieter Pieter van Goor (PhD) | Lecturer (Mechatronics), Mechatronics Stream Director School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (AMME) | Faculty of Engineering Room 201B Rose Street Building (J04) | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 E pieter.vangoor(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:pieter.vangoor@sydney.edu.au> | W pvangoor.github.io<http://pvangoor.github.io> _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] Ocean Optics Lab Visit (28 July)
by Thien Hoang Nguyen 27 Jul '26

27 Jul '26

Hi everyone, We will have two visitors from Ocean Optics at J19 on Tuesday, 28 July 2026, from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. I will be giving them a brief tour of the lab before staying mostly in the Ag area. Please hide your work as appropriate. Thank you. Best regards, Thien Nguyen | Vonwiller Research Associate in Robotics and AI for Precision Agriculture Australian Centre for Robotics | Faculty of Engineering | The University of Sydney _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] Lab Visit from 11:15am
by Dai Bang Nguyen 26 Jul '26

26 Jul '26

Good morning all, Apologies for short notice. There will be Faculty's staff and visitors having a tour in the Field lab from 11:15am to 12pm. Please hide or show your research as appropriate. Best regards, Bang Nguyen | Senior Mechatronics Technical Lead The University of Sydney Faculty of Engineering, Australian Centre for Robotics Robotics Laboratory J19 | 78-80 Abercrombie St, Chippendale | NSW | 2008 +61 2 9351 2156 | bang.nguyen(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:bang.nguyen@sydney.edu.au> | sydney.edu.au<http://sydney.edu.au/> [A black background with a black square AI-generated content may be incorrect.] CRICOS 00026A TEQSA PRV12057 This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments. Please think of our environment and only print this email if necessary. _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] Lab tour 2pm
by Jennifer Wakulicz 24 Jul '26

24 Jul '26

Hi, I'll be taking a visitor from UPenn around the labs for a quick tour again today so please hide/showcase your work as appropriate! Thanks, Jen _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] FW: ACFR Seminar Series: Zeyu Zhang (UC Berkeley) - Towards General Embodied Reasoning
by Ian Manchester 24 Jul '26

24 Jul '26

Starting very soon! From: acfr.admin(a)sydney.edu.au When: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM 24 July 2026 Subject: ACFR Seminar Series: Zeyu Zhang (UC Berkeley) - Towards General Embodied Reasoning Location: ACFR J04 Level 2 Seminar Area:; https://maps.app.goo.gl/PUJdbB9oUTtg5fLr8; ZOOM:; https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/s/87306457455 Faculty of Engineering ACFR Seminar Series [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260723/44/a0/ac/85/83de99ae1318da0a…] [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260723/90/62/a1/a0/e806283be685b4d0…] Towards General Embodied Reasoning Presented by Zeyu Zhang (UC Berkeley) Date: Friday, 24 July 2026, at 2:00 pm AEST Venue: ACFR seminar area, J04 level 2 (Rose St Building<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/m4IXCxngwOf9l2B0ZTYiLfyj4Vg?domain=t…>) Zoom ID: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/s/87306457455<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/7h2CCyojxQT01lJWYfRswfxP-TJ?domain=t…> Abstract: Building general-purpose embodied agents requires moving beyond specialized systems toward models that can understand, reason about, and interact with diverse physical environments. In this talk, Zeyu Zhang will present his recent research on general embodied reasoning, covering 3D scene understanding, long-horizon navigation, robotic control, domain adaptation, and self-evolving agents. The talk will discuss how multimodal pretraining, scalable synthetic data, and data-centric learning can produce transferable representations that support a wide range of tasks, including captioning, grounding, question answering, dialogue, spatial reasoning, and planning. It will then examine how environmental understanding can be extended to embodied decision-making through hierarchical frameworks that combine fast reactive control with slower long-horizon reasoning. Zeyu will also discuss how carefully designed post-training, parameter-efficient adaptation, and verifiable feedback can improve navigation and control while preserving previously acquired perception and reasoning capabilities. Finally, the talk will explore how embodied agents can continue improving when manually specified objectives are incomplete or inaccurate, using self-supervised feedback, world-model-based exploration, adaptive memory, and stage-aware learning signals. Together, these studies highlight the importance of scalable data, spatially grounded foundation models, restrained reinforcement learning, and continual self-improvement for advancing toward general embodied intelligence. Bio: Zeyu is an incoming PhD student at UC Berkeley BAIR, advised by Professor Pieter Abbeel, Professor Alexei Efros, and Professor Angjoo Kanazawa. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Australian National University, where he was advised by Professor Richard Hartley and Professor Ian Reid. [Register for Event >]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/ysF4CzvkyVCx10nBKTotzf9HKlq?domain=t…> [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260723/2e/8d/c7/1c/1c70baef8b350e38…] [Web Site]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Uq8mCBNqjlCMGgAmvFvCNf2aCrL?domain=t…> [LinkedIn]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/6T06CD1vlpTn9RMmXTBFRfjlpfb?domain=t…> [X]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/3m83CE8wmrtg7QnGBuyHyf7hkO0?domain=t…> [YouTube]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/ff6LCGv0oyC07VqlwfWIPfBn_Tf?domain=t…> Copyright © 2026 The University of Sydney Please add acfr.admin(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:acfr.admin@sydney.edu.au> to your address book or senders safe list to make sure you continue to see our emails in the future. Cricos Code 00026A TEQSA PRV12057 Disclaimer<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/fjLjCJyBrGf1J7yzxcnS9fy86VC?domain=t…> | Privacy statement<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/gZsXCK1DvKTBoj9wLHrTwf5nX0Q?domain=t…> | _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] Nathan and Tom Farewell
by Nathan Wallace 23 Jul '26

23 Jul '26

Hi all, As many of you may be aware, both myself and Tom will be finishing up our contracts at the end of this month. We'd like to thank you all for the great advice, support and camaraderie over the many years we've worked at the centre. ACFR has been an amazing place to work, and no small part of that is thanks to all the excellent people we've had the opportunity and privilege to work with. To those of you interested in giving us a send-off, we'll be at the Chippo this Friday from 4pm, so we look forward to seeing you then! Otherwise, I'll be around til Thursday next week, and Tom til Tuesday, so feel free to stop by for a chat. Cheers, Nathan and Tom _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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[Everybody at ACFR] ACFR Seminar Series: Zeyu Zhang (UC Berkeley) - Towards General Embodied Reasoning
by Sabrina Asri 23 Jul '26

23 Jul '26

Faculty of Engineering ACFR Seminar Series [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260723/44/a0/ac/85/83de99ae1318da0a…] [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260723/90/62/a1/a0/e806283be685b4d0…] Towards General Embodied Reasoning Presented by Zeyu Zhang (UC Berkeley) Date: Friday, 24 July 2026, at 2:00 pm AEST Venue: ACFR seminar area, J04 level 2 (Rose St Building<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/HNKJCBNqjlCMGgDLxfMcNf2WyeD?domain=t…>) Zoom ID: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/s/87306457455<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Sw1TCD1vlpTn9Ro87CxfRfj35gq?domain=t…> Abstract: Building general-purpose embodied agents requires moving beyond specialized systems toward models that can understand, reason about, and interact with diverse physical environments. In this talk, Zeyu Zhang will present his recent research on general embodied reasoning, covering 3D scene understanding, long-horizon navigation, robotic control, domain adaptation, and self-evolving agents. The talk will discuss how multimodal pretraining, scalable synthetic data, and data-centric learning can produce transferable representations that support a wide range of tasks, including captioning, grounding, question answering, dialogue, spatial reasoning, and planning. It will then examine how environmental understanding can be extended to embodied decision-making through hierarchical frameworks that combine fast reactive control with slower long-horizon reasoning. Zeyu will also discuss how carefully designed post-training, parameter-efficient adaptation, and verifiable feedback can improve navigation and control while preserving previously acquired perception and reasoning capabilities. Finally, the talk will explore how embodied agents can continue improving when manually specified objectives are incomplete or inaccurate, using self-supervised feedback, world-model-based exploration, adaptive memory, and stage-aware learning signals. Together, these studies highlight the importance of scalable data, spatially grounded foundation models, restrained reinforcement learning, and continual self-improvement for advancing toward general embodied intelligence. Bio: Zeyu is an incoming PhD student at UC Berkeley BAIR, advised by Professor Pieter Abbeel, Professor Alexei Efros, and Professor Angjoo Kanazawa. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Australian National University, where he was advised by Professor Richard Hartley and Professor Ian Reid. [Register for Event >]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/_sewCE8wmrtg7QlZwfDhyf7aYCr?domain=t…> [https://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20260723/2e/8d/c7/1c/1c70baef8b350e38…] [Web Site]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/eU4VCJyBrGf1J7BjkS7s9fypLgI?domain=t…> [LinkedIn]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/_JIHCK1DvKTBojDRQH8twf5iM3k?domain=t…> [X]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/alOaCL7EwMfmWJkz0CXuMfy6EFv?domain=t…> [YouTube]<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/XaPICMwGxOtRrQ2nphoCKf812z9?domain=t…> Copyright © 2026 The University of Sydney Please add acfr.admin(a)sydney.edu.au<mailto:acfr.admin@sydney.edu.au> to your address book or senders safe list to make sure you continue to see our emails in the future. Cricos Code 00026A TEQSA PRV12057 Disclaimer<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/_edYCNLJyQUEW2ZgYtwFDfyfNP1?domain=t…> | Privacy statement<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/A02yCOMKzVT086NBDt8HzfGa1So?domain=t…> | _______________________________________________ Everybody mailing list -- everybody(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au To unsubscribe send an email to everybody-leave(a)acfr.usyd.edu.au

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