Biography

Momotaz Begum joined TRI as a postdoctoral fellow in June 2012. Her research at TRI involves development of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) platforms for the home care robot as well as the powered wheelchair. Prior to joining the TRI she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Socially Intelligent Machine lab in the college of computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. She also served as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow for a brief period of time at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, Kyoto, Japan.

Momotaz received her PhD in Electrical Engineering (Mobile Robotics) from University of Waterloo in June 2010. Her PhD research was on designing a primates-like model of visual attention for robotic cognition. She is a recipient of several prestigious academic awards including NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship D, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and MITACS Industrial Internship.

Momotaz’s research interest includes HRI, visual attention, robotic cognition, SLAM, and image processing.

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

M. Begum and F. Karray, “Robotic visual attention: A survey”, IEEE Transaction on Autonomous Mental Development, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 92-105, 2011.
M. Begum, F. Karray, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “A probabilistic model of overt visual attention for cognitive robots”, IEEE Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics B (SMC), Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 1305-1318, 2010.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “Integrated fuzzy logic and genetic algorithmic approach for simultaneous localization and mapping of mobile robots ”, Journal of Applied Soft Computing, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 150–165, 2008.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “An evolutionary SLAM algorithm for mobile robots”, Advanced Robotics, Vol. 21, No. 9, pp. 1031–1050, 2007.

Book Chapter

M. Begum and F. Karray, “Computational intelligence techniques in bio-inspired robotics”, Computational Intelligence in Autonomous Robotic Systems, pp. 1-29, Springer 2008.

Fully Peer-reviewed Conference Papers

M. Begum, R. Wang, R. Huq, and A. Mihailidis, “Performance of Daily Activities by Older Adults with Dementia: The Role of an Assistive Robot”, submitted to IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, Seattle, June 2013.
C. Chao, J. Lee, M. Begum, and A. Thomaz, “Simon plays Simon says: The timing of turn-taking in an imitation game”, IEEE International symposium on robot and human interactive communication (IEEE RO-MAN) 2011.
M. Begum and F. Karray, “Integrating visual exploration and visual search for robotic visual attention: The role of human-robot interaction," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2011 (nominated for the Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award).
M. Begum, F. Karray, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “A Probabilistic Approach for Attention-Based Multi-Modal Human-Robot Interaction”, IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN), 2009.
M. Begum, F. Karray, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “Re-mapping of Visual Saliency in Overt Attention: A Particle Filter Approach for Robotic Systems”, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics 2008.
M. Begum, G. K. Mann, R. Gosine, and F. Karray, “Object- and space-based visual attention: An Integrated Framework for Autonomous Robots”, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 301-306, 2008.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “A biologically inspired Bayesian model of visual attention for humanoid robots ”, Proceedings of IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 587-592, 2006.
R. Huq, M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “Biased competitive model of humanoid visual attention using fuzzy discrete event system ”, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, pp. 1559-1564, 2006.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “An evolutionary algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) of mobile robots ”, Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 4066-4071, 2006.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “A fuzzy-evolutionary algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping of mobile robots”, Proceedings of IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation , pp. 1975-1982, 2006.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “Concurrent mapping and localization for mobile robot using soft computing techniques”, Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 2266-2271, 2005.
M. Begum, N. Nahar, K. Fatimah, and M. K. Hasan, “An efficient wavelet-VQ method for image coding”, Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, pp. II-428 - II-431 vol.2, 2003.
M. Begum, N. Nahar, K. Fatimah, and M. K. Hasan, “A new initialization technique for LBG algorithm”, Proceedings of International Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, pp. 164-167, 2002.

Non-refereed Contributions

M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “Dynamically constructed adaptive resonance Thoery: as the mind of a developing robot”, IEEE Annual Newfoundland Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference, 2006.
M. Begum, G. K. I. Mann, and R. G. Gosine, “A spatio-temporal approach for tracking of non-rigid motion in video sequence”, IEEE Annual Newfoundland Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference, 2005.