Emre Ugur

Ph.D.

• Home
• Publications
• Projects
• Current Research
• Courses
• Jobs
• More About Me
• Contact

Publications

Journal

• M. Imre, E. Oztop, Y. Nagai, E. Ugur, Affordance-Based Altruistic Robotic Architecture for Human-Robot Collaboration, under revision.
• T. Taniguchi, E. Ugur, M. Hoffmann, L. Jamone, T. Nagai, B. Rosman, T. Matsuka, N. Iwahashi, E. Oztop, J. Piater, F. Worgotter. Symbol Emergence in Cognitive Developmental Systems: a Survey, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, accepted, pdf, link
• L. Jamone, E. Ugur, J. Santos-Victor. Special Issue on Affordances, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 10(1):1-3, 2018. pdf, link.
• L. Jamone, E. Ugur, A. Cangelosi, L. Fadiga, A. Bernardino, J. Piater, and J. Santos-Victor. Affordances in psychology, neuroscience and robotics: a survey, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 10(1):4-25, 2018. pdf, link.
• E. Ugur and J. Piater. Emergent structuring of interdependent affordance learning tasks using intrinsic motivation and empirical feature selection, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 9(4):328-340, 2017. pdf, link.
• P. Zech, S. Haller, S. R. Lakani, B. Ridge, E. Ugur, and J. Piater. Computational models of affordance in robotics: A taxonomy and systematic classification, Adaptive Behavior, 25(5):235-271, 2017, pdf, link.
• Simon Hangl, Emre Ugur, and Justus Piater. Autonomous robots: potential, advances and future direction, e & i Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, 134(6):293-298, 2017, pdf, link.
• E. Ugur, E. Sahin, Y. Nagai, and E. Oztop , Staged Development of Robot Skills: Behavior Formation, Affordance Learning and Imitation, IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 7 (2), pp. 119-139, 2015, link, pdf, video.
• E. Ugur, Y. Nagai, H. Celikkanat, and E. Oztop , Parental scaffolding as a bootstrapping mechanism for learning grasp affordances and imitation skills, Cambridge University Press, Robotica, 33 (05), pp. 1163-1180, 2015, pdf, link
• E. Ugur, E. Oztop and E. Sahin, Goal emulation and planning in perceptual space using learned affordances, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 59 (7-8), pp. 580-595, 2011. pdf, link
• E. Ugur and E. Sahin, Traversability: A case study for learning and perceiving affordances in robots, Adaptive Behavior, 18(3-4), pp. 258-284, 2010. pdf, link
• E. Sahin, M. Cakmak, M.R. Dogar, E. Ugur, and G. Ucoluk , To afford or not to afford: A new formalization of affordances towards affordance-based robot control, Adaptive Behavior, 15(4), pp. 447-472, 2007. pdf, link
• E. Sahin, S. Girgin, and E. Ugur , Area measurement of large closed regions with a mobile robot, Autonomous Robots, 21(3) No: 3, pp. 255-266, November 2006. pdf, link
  

Conference

• Hakan Girgin and Emre Ugur, Associative Skill Memory Models, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, 2018.
• Ahmet E. Tekden, Emre Ugur, Yukie Nagai and Erhan Oztop, Modeling the Development of Infant Imitation using Inverse Reinforcement Learning, 8th International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-Epirob), Tokyo, 2018.
• Melisa I. Sener and Emre Ugur, Partitioning Sensorimotor Space by Predictability Principle in Intrinsic Motivation Systems, 8th International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-Epirob), Tokyo, 2018.
• Melisa I. Sener and Emre Ugur. Icsel motivasyon sistemlerinde ogrenme uzayinin tahmin edilebilirlik prensibiyle bolunmesi, 4. Türkiye Robotbilim Konferansı (ToRK), 2018, pp. 164-169.
• M. Yunus Seker, Erhan Cagirici, and Emre Ugur. Şekil Bağlamı Kullanarak Eylem Etki Tahmini, 4. Türkiye Robotbilim Konferansı (ToRK), 2018, pp. 176-181.
• Ahmet E. Tekden and Emre Ugur. Kaldırma Aksiyonuyla Oluşan Yörüngenin Uzun Kısa Dönem Hafıza Modeli ile Tahmini, 4. Türkiye Robotbilim Konferansı (ToRK), 2018, pp. 206-210.
• H. Girgin and E. Ugur,Towards Generalizable Associative Skill Memories, ICRA 2017 Workshop on Learning and control for autonomous manipulation systems: the role of dimensionality reduction, Singapore, 2017 pdf
• S. Hangl, E. Ugur, S. Szedmak and J. Piater, Hierarchical Haptic Manipulation for Complex Skill Learning, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 9-14 October 2016, Korea pdf.
• S. Krivic, E. Ugur and J. Piater , A Robust Pushing Skill For Object Delivery Between Obstacles, 12th Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, Texas, USA, 21-24 August, 2016.pdf.
• E. Ugur and J. Piater , Refining discovered symbols with multi-step interaction experience , 2015 IEEE-RAS 15th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), November 3-5, 2015, Seoul, Korea. pdf, link, video.
• Emre Ugur, Jimmy Baraglia, Lars Schillingmann, and Yukie Nagai, Use of speech and motion cues for bootstrapping complex action learning in iCub, 5th International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-Epirob), 2015, extended abstract. pdf, video.
• E. Ugur and J. Piater, Bottom-Up Learning of Object Categories, Action Effects and Logical Rules: From Continuous Manipulative Exploration to Symbolic Planning, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seattle, Washington, 26-30 May 2015, pp. 2627-2633. pdf ,video.
• Simon Hangl, Emre Ugur, Sandor Szedmak, Ales Ude, and Justus Piater, Reactive, task-specific object manipulation by metric reinforcement learning, International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), Istanbul, Turkey, 27-31 July 2015. to appear.
• Barry Ridge, Emre Ugur, and Ales Ude, Comparison of action-grounded and non-action-grounded 3-d shape features for object affordance classification, International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), Istanbul, Turkey, 27-31 July, 2015.
• E. Ugur and J. Piater, Emergent structuring of interdependent affordance learning tasks, The Fourth Joint IEEE Intl. Conf. on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-Epirob), Genoa, Italy, 13-16 October, 2014, pp. 481-486. pdf
• E. Ugur, S. Szedmak and J. Piater, Bootstrapping paired-object affordance learning with learned single-affordance features, The Fourth Joint IEEE Intl. Conf. on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-Epirob), Genoa, Italy, 13-16 October, 2014, pp. 468-473. pdf
• S. Szedmak, E. Ugur, and J. Piater, Knowledge Propagation and Relation Learning for Predicting Action Effects, IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Chicago, US, September 14-18 2014, pp. 623-629. pdf
• S. Hangl, S. Krivic, P. Zech, E. Ugur and J. Piater, Exploiting the Environment for Object Manipulation, Austrian Robotics Workshop. (Best student paper award)
• E. Ugur, S. Szedmak, and J. Piater, Complex affordance learning based on basic affordances / Temel Saglarlik Tabanli Karmasik Saglarlik Ogrenimi, 22nd Signal Processing and Communications Applications Conference (SIU 204), Trabzon, Turkey, 23-25 April, 2014, pp. 698-701. pdf
• E. Ugur, Y. Nagai, and E. Oztop, , Affordance based imitation bootstrapping with motionese, in Proceedings of the International Workshop on Developmental Social Robotics, pp. 9-14, November 2013
• E. Ugur, Y. Nagai and E. Oztop, Parental scaffolding as a bootstrapping mechanism for learning grasp affordances and imitation skills, in Proceedings of the 22nd International Workshop on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region, pp. 167-174, Portoroz, Slovenia, 11-13 September 2013. (Best Paper Research Award)
• E. Ugur, E. Sahin and E. Oztop, Self-discovery of motor primitives and learning grasp affordances, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 12), pp. 3260-3267, Algarve, Portugal, October 7-11, 2012. pdf, link
• M. Parlaktuna, D. Tunaoglu, E. Sahin and E. Ugur, Closed-loop primitives: A method to generate and recognize reaching actions from demonstration, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 12), St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, 14-18 May 2012. pdf, link
• O. Kroemer, E. Ugur, E. Oztop and J. Peters, A Kernel-based Approach to Direct Action Perception, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 12), St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, 14-18 May, 2012. pdf, link
• E. Ugur, H. Celikkanat, E. Sahin, Y. Nagai, and E. Oztop, Learning to Grasp with Parental Scaffolding, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Humanoid Robotics, pp. 480-486, Bled, Slovenia, 26-28 October, 2011. pdf, link
• E. Ugur, E. Oztop and E. Sahin, Going beyond the perception of affordances: Learning how to actualize them through behavioral parameters, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 11), pp. 4768-4773, Shanghai, China, 9-13 May, 2011. pdf, link
• E. Ugur, E. Sahin and E. Oztop, Unsupervised learning of object affordances for planning in a mobile manipulation platform, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 11), 4326-4332, Shanghai, China, 9-13 May, 2011. pdf, link
• E. Ugur, E. Sahin and E. Oztop, Affordance learning from range data for multi-step planning, Ninth International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems (EpiRob), pp. 177-184, Venice, Italy, 12-14 November, 2009. pdf
• E. Ugur, E. Sahin and E. Oztop, Predicting future object states using learned affordances, International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences (ISCIS 2009), Special Session on Cognitive Cybernetics and Brain Modeling, pp. 415-419, Northern Cyprus, 14-16 September 2009. pdf, link
• M.R. Dogar, E. Ugur, M. Cakmak, and E. Sahin , Using Learned Affordances for Robotic Behavior Development, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 08), pp. 3802-3807, Pasadena, CA, USA, May 19-23, 2008. pdf, link
• M. Cakmak, M.R. Dogar, E. Ugur, and E. Sahin, Affordances as a Framework for Robot Control , Seventh International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics, Piscataway, NJ, USA, November 5-7, 2007. pdf
• E. Ugur, Ali E. Turgut, and E. Sahin, Dispersion of a swarm of robots based on realistic wireless intensity signals, 22nd Intl. Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences (ISCIS'07) , Ankara, Turkey, November 7-9, 2007. pdf, link
• E. Ugur, M.R. Dogar, M. Cakmak, and E. Sahin, Curiosity-driven Learning of Traversability Affordance on a Mobile Robot, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Development and Learning (ICDL 07), pp. 13-18, London, UK., July 11-13 2007. pdf, link
• E. Ugur, M.R. Dogar, M. Cakmak, and E. Sahin, The learning and use of traversability affordance using range images on a mobile robot, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 07), pp. 1721-1726, Rome, Italy, April 10-14, 2007. pdf , link

Thesis

• E. Ugur, A Developmental Framework for Learning Affordances, PhD. Thesis. Middle East Technical University, December 2010. pdf.
• E. Ugur, Direct Perception of Traversability Affordance on Range Images Through Learning on a Mobile Robot, Msc. Thesis. Middle East Technical University, September 2006. pdf.

Invited Talks (N)ational/(I)nternational

• I Developmental Robotics, International Symposium on Brain and Cognitive Science ISBCS 2018 , Bogazici University, Istanbul.
• N Symbol emergence in robots, Middle East Technical Univesity Cognitive Science Colloquim, March 2017, Istanbul, Turkey.
• N Cognitive robots in Industry 4.0, WIN Eurasia Automation, Endustri 4.0 paneli, March 2017, Istanbul, Turkey.
• N Bootstrapping symbolic and social learning through affordances, invited talk at the workshop on Bio-inspired Social Robot Learning in Home Scenario, at IROS 2016 in October 2016, in Korea.
• I Bootstrapping Symbols from Continuous Manipulative Exploration, invited talk at the workshop on Bootstrapping Manipulation Skills, at RSS in June 2016 in Ann Arbor, USA.
• N Bootstrapping symbols from sensorimotor experience, invited talk at the III. Workshop on New Trends in Robotics, June 03, 2016, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, TURKEY2016. link
• I Closing the loop: From continuous exploration to symbolic planning, invited talk at the 2nd International Workshop on Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics, February 21-22, 2016, Osaka, Japan. link
• I Bootstrapping complex affordance learning with learned basic affordances for symbolic planning, invited talk in Workshop on Learning Reusable Concepts in Robotics, Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Conference, Rome, Italy, July, 2015. link
• I Staged development of robot skills, invited talk in Technical University Munich, Institute for Cognitive Systems, March 31, 2014.
• I Skill development through affordance-based bootstrapping, invited talk in Dagstuhl Seminar "Robots Learning from Experiences", Wadern, Germany, February, 2014. link
• I Affordance: The Elephant in the Room, invited talk in International Conference, "What Affordance Affords", November 25-27, 2013, Darmstadt, Germany. link
• I Unsupervised Discovery of Actions and Action Possibilities, invited talk in Dagstuhl Seminar: Mechanisms of Ongoing Development in Cognitive Robotics, Wadern, Germany, February, 2013. link
• I Action planning based on learned affordances, invited talk in Motor Control: from Humans to Robots session, Motor Control Symposium, Nagoya, Japan, 2010.
• I Learning affordances in mobile and manipulator robots , invited talk at Dpt. of Automatics, Biocybernetics, and Robotics, Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2009.
• I The learning and use of traversability affordance on a mobile robot, seminar at University of Edinburgh, Institute for Perception, Action and Behavior, Edinburgh, UK, 2007.
  

Book chapter

• E. Rome, L. Paletta, E. Sahin, G. Dorffner, J. Hertzberg, G. Fritz, J. Irran, F. Kintzler, C. Lorken, S. May, E. Ugur, R. Breithaupt, The MACS project: An approach to affordance-based robot control Towards Affordance-based Robot Control, Proceedings of Dagstuhl Seminar 06231, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 173-210, Rome, E., Hertzberg, J. and Dorffner, G. (eds.), February 2008.

Workshop and posters

• E. Ugur, Y. Shimizu, E. Oztop, and H. Imamizu, Reconstruction of Grasp Posture from MEG Brain Activity, The 34th Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, Yokohama, Japan, 2011.
• B. Moore, E. Ugur, and E. Oztop, Biologically inspired robot grasping through human-in-the-loop robot control, IROS 2010 Workshop on grasp planning and task learning by imitation, Taiwan, 2010.
  
• E. Ugur, E. Oztop, and Erol Sahin, Discovering action-oriented object meanings in an anthropomorphic robot platform, Neuro 2010, 2010, Kobe.
  
• E. Ugur, E. Sahin, and E. Oztop, Use of range cameras for the perception of push and grasp affordances, Computer Vision for Humanoid Robots in Real Environments Workshop, ICCV, 2009, Kyoto.
  
• E. Ugur, E. Oztop, and E. Sahin, Learning Affordance Relations in a Mobile Robot with Limited Manipulation Capabilities, The 32st Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, Nagoya, 2009.
  
• E. Ugur, E. Oztop, and E. Sahin, Learning object affordances for planning, Workshop on Approaches to Sensorimotor Learning on Humanoid Robots, International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2009), pp. 38-39, Kobe, Japan, May, 2009. (Extended abstract)

Technical reports

• E. Sahin, M. Cakmak, M.R. Dogar, E. Ugur, and G. Ucoluk, To afford or not to afford: A new formalization of affordances towards affordance-based robot control, KOVAN Research Lab., Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, 2006.
• E. Sahin, E. Ugur and M. Cakmak, Evaluation of existing control architectures for using affordances, MACS Technical Report MACS/2/2.1, KOVAN Research Lab., Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 2006.
• E. Rome, E. Sahin, R. Breithaupt, J. Irran, F. Kintzler, L. Paletta, M. Cakmak, E. Ugur, G. Ucoluk, M.R. Dogar, P. Rudol, G. Fritz, G. Dorffner, P. Doherty, M. Wzorek, H. Surmann, C. Lorken, Development of an Affordance-based Control Architecture, MACS Technical Report MACS/2/2.2, Fraunhofer AIS, Sankt Augustin, 2006.
• E. Ugur, Mehmet Remzi Dogar, Onur Soysal, M. Cakmak and E. Sahin, MACSim: Physics-based Simulation of the KURT3D Robot Platform for Studying Affordances, MACS Technical Report MACS/1/2.1, KOVAN Research Lab., Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 2006.
• E. Ugur, Mehmet Remzi Dogar, Onur Soysal, M. Cakmak, Ralph Breithaupt and E. Sahin, Modeling of the final demonstrator scenario in a physics-based simulator, MACS Technical Report MACS/6/6.2, KOVAN Research Lab., Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 2006.