Akira Taniguchi's Website
Profile
Akira Taniguchi, Ph.D. Eng. (Ritsumeikan University)
Position: Lecturer
Laboratory affiliation
Intelligent Computer Entertainment Lab., College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Emergent Systems Laboratory, Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University
Societies: The Robotics Society of Japan, The Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, The Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers, IEEE (Robotics and Automation Society)
The main research theme
"Spatial Concept and Lexical Acquisition by Robot Based on Probabilistic Generative Models"
This research proposed a nonparametric Bayesian spatial concept acquisition method, SpCoA (A.Taniguchi et al., TCDS2016), that integrates the unsupervised generative model for self-localization and word segmentation in uttered sentences via latent variables related to spatial concepts.
In addition, we developed an online learning algorithm, SpCoSLAM (A.Taniguchi et al., IROS2017), that can sequentially learn spatial concepts, a lexicon, and a map by integrating positions, speech signals, and scene images.
The spatial concept represents a place category, including the relationships between places and words. Lexical acquisition related to places is expected to enable a robot to improve its spatial cognition.
Fields of Research Interest: Symbol Emergence in Robotics, Intelligent Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robot Learning, Brain-inspired AI
Education & Experience
2013. 3 B.E. degree from Ritsumeikan University
2015. 3 M.E. degree from the Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University
2018. 3 Ph.D. Engineering degree from the Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University
2015. 5 - 2017. 3 Research Assistant, Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University
2016. 4 - 2016. 7 Visiting research student, Centre for Robotics and Neural Systems Research Group, Plymouth University, U.K.
2017. 4 - 2018. 3 Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (DC2)
2018. 4 - 2019. 3 Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (PD)
2019. 4 - 2022. 3 Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
2022 .4 - Lecturer, College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Awards
Award 2nd place, Ritsumeikan University Graduate School Research Proposal Contest AY2014. (2014.12)
SSI Excellence Paper Award, SICE Symposium on Systems and Information 2015 (SSI2015). (2015.11)
SSI Promoting Research Award, SICE Symposium on Systems and Information 2015 (SSI2015). (2015.11)
Third place, Finalist Award, Team "Tanichu Cluster", RoboCup Japan Open 2016 @Home Education League (2016.3)
Research Encouragement Award, The Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University (2016.10)
International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR), Best Interactive Session (Finalist). (2017.11)
Excellent Research Award, The Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University (2018.3)
WBAI Encouragement Award, Whole Brain Architecture Symposium (2018.5)
2023.1 The 2023 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII 2023), Best Paper Award.
2023.5.3 RoboCup Japanese Regional Committee, RoboCup Research Award [Link]
Grants
Research Grant (C) from Tateishi science and technology foundation. PI (2016-2017)
JST AIP Network Laboratory, 2016 (H28) AIP challenge. PI (2016.10-2017.3)
JSPS, Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellow. PI (2017-2018)
JST AIP Network Laboratory, 2017 (H29) AIP challenge. PI (2017.8-2018.3)
JST AIP Network Laboratory, AIP challenge PRISM. PI (2018.8-2019.3)
JST AIP Network Laboratory, 2019 AIP challenge. PI (2019.8-2020.3)
JSPS, KAKENHI, Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists. PI (2020-2022)
JSPS, KAKENHI, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A). Co-investigator (2021-2025)
JSPS, KAKENHI, Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A). Co-investigator (2022-2026)
JSPS, KAKENHI, Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists. PI (2023-2025)
Activity
Attendance, 29th MACHINE LEARNING SUMMER SCHOOL (MLSS), Kyoto University, Japan, 2015.
A team member, "Tanichu Cluster", RoboCup Japan Open 2016 @Home Education League, March 2016.
A team member, "Duckers", RoboCup Japan Open 2017 @Home Domestic Standard Platform League, May 2017.
Organized Session (co-organizer), OS-37 "Symbol Emergence in Robotics", The 31st Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI 2017), May 2017.
Presentation, 2016 Ritsumeikan University Graduate School Doctoral Program, International Research Activity Promotion Research Fund Research Achievement Report Meeting, Ritsumeikan University, June 2017.
Presentation, BKC Rice Bowl Seminar 2017, Ritsumeikan University, June 2017.
A team member, "Duckers", RoboCup2017 Nagoya Japan @Home Domestic Standard Platform League, July 2017.
Attendance, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “AI & BRAIN” Summer School, August 2017.
Presentation, The 103rd IEEE Kansai Section Lecture Meeting, "Home robotics application of machine learning", Ritsumeikan University, July 2018.
Attendance, Summer School 2018 of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, August 2018.
Attendance, Spring School on "Social and Artificial Intelligence for User-Friendly Robots" (SoAIR2019), March 2019.
A member of the editorial board (64-65th), The Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers, May 2020 -.
Organized Session (co-organizer), "Data Engineering Robotics and Probabilistic Robotics", The annual conference of the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), 2020-2023.
Review Editor on the Editorial Board for the section Robot Learning and Evolution in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, May 2021 -.
Topic Editor, Research Topic "Constructive Approach to Spatial Cognition in Intelligent Robotics", Frontiers in Robotics and AI / Neurorobotics, 2021.
Presentation, WBA lecture, November 2021 and December 2022.
Presentation, Workshop by Technical Committee on Neurocomputing (NC), March 2022.
Presentation, Study Group on Language and Robotics, October 2022.
Organized Session (co-organizer), Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, 2023.
Editorial and Review Board on Advanced Robotics, April 2023 -. [LINK]
Program Committee Member, 15th International Conference on Smart Computing and Artificial Intelligence (SCAI 2024) in IIAI AAI 2024, 2024.
Technical Committee on Cognitive Robotics and Robot Learning in IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, April 2024.
Organized Session (co-organizer), Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, 2024.
Organizer, IJCNN 2024 Workshop "Towards Realizing Whole-Brain Computational Models Guided by Cognitive Models (WBCM-CogM)," in IEEE WCCI 2024, 30 June 2024. [LINK]
Contact
Email : a.taniguchi ＠ em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp
Facebook ID: akira.taniguchi.37b
Address :
Lab.: H706, Faculty room: H7005, (Mail to H705)
H705, College of Information Science Engineering, Building H, Osaka Ibaraki Campus, Ritsumeikan University, 2-150 Iwakura-cho, Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-8570 Japan