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zahid

I graduated in Physics from University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan in 2001. I received my Master degree in Systems Engineering from Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Islamabad, Pakistan in 2004. Since 2007, I am working for my PhD degree in Computer Sciences as a sponsored student of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC)http://www.hec.gov.pk and German Academics Exchange Service (DAAD) http://www.daad.de. In 2009-2010, I have visited Computer Vision Lab, at University of Central Florida, http://server.cs.ucf.edu/~vision/

Research Topics

  • Face Detection, Face Model Fitting, Head Tracking
  • Model-Based Image Interpretation
  • Facial Expression Recognition, Emotion Recognition
  • Person Localization, Person Tracking
  • Action Language

Current Research Projects

  • AwareKitchen : Intelligent sensor equipped environments can be of much greater help if they are capable of recognizing the actions and activities of their users, and inferring their intentions. Understanding human activities and characterizing them into expressive and detailed activity models is one of the key issues of today's current pervasive computing systems. If such a system could recognize and understand automatically its user's behavior, it could interact in a more efficient and friendly manner. Unfortunately, the current model construction techniques are based on supervised learning and require specifications from their human counterparts, such as labeling the acquired sensor data. Our vision is to build technical cognitive systems that create and use models in a straightforward manner, by combining already existing online information with the system's context history.
  • Face Image Analysis : As robots emerge from their classical domain - factories - to be included in every day life, they need to gain new abilities besides those needed in manufacturing. They need not only to support humans, but also be able to socialize with their users to enhance the interactant experience and allow for social bonding. Recent progress in the field of Computer Vision allows intuitive interaction via gesture or facial expressions between humans and technical systems. Recent research aims at enabling machines to utilize communication channels natural to human beings, such as gesture or facial expressions. Humans interpret emotion from video and audio information and heavily rely on this information during every-day communication. Therefore, knowledge about human behavior, intention, and emotion is necessary to construct convenient human-machine interaction mechanisms. The human face provides much of the information that is passed between humans in every-day communication. Although most of this information is passed on a subconscious level, we still rely on the interaction partner's facial expression to determine emotional state or attention to form a prediction of his or her reaction.

Student Projects:

Students projects are available in human face modeling, analysis and synthesis for Human robot interaction (HRI). For further information see http://ias.in.tum.de/teaching/student-projects

Human Robot Interactive Scenarios:

Opportunities are available in terms of guided research, bachelor and master project working with iCub http://www.robotcub.org/ a humanoid robot. The intended tasks consist of various topics including human robot interaction, facial expressions synthesis and person identity and manipulations. Interested students can write to: riaz@in.tum.de.


iCub BMBF Logo               icup-day-open-door-2009.jpg                                                     

Selected Publications

For the full list of my Publications please see the Publications section.
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