Mi3 Lab
Machine Intelligence, Interaction, and Imagination
"How do we ascribe meaning to objects and actions in the open world to make safe, goal-aligned decisions?"
About Our Lab
The Mi3 Lab at UC Merced researches machine intelligence, interaction, and imagination to develop safer autonomous vehicles, robots, and human-interactive intelligent systems. Our primary focus is on safe autonomous driving and intelligent transportation systems, where we work to ensure that self-driving vehicles can safely interact with all road users—including first responders, pedestrians, cyclists, and vulnerable populations.
We address critical challenges such as how autonomous vehicles should respond to emergency vehicles, how to make mobility accessible for all populations, and how intelligent systems can understand both verbal and non-verbal human communication. Our research spans artificial intelligence, computer vision, multimodal machine learning, and human-robot interaction, with a strong emphasis on safety validation, explainability, and real-world deployment.
Research Focus Areas
Artificial Intelligence & Computer Vision
Developing advanced perception systems that enable machines to understand and interpret visual information from the world around them.
Multimodal Machine Learning & Robotics
Creating systems that integrate multiple sensory modalities to enable more robust and capable robotic systems.
Human-Computer & Human-Robot Interaction
Designing intuitive interfaces and interaction paradigms that enable seamless collaboration between humans and intelligent systems.
Vision-Language Representations
Building models that bridge visual perception and natural language understanding for more interpretable AI systems.
Safety, Explainability & Trust
Ensuring AI systems are safe, reliable, and can explain their decisions in ways humans can understand and trust.
Adaptability & Generalization
Creating systems that can adapt to new environments and generalize learned knowledge to novel situations.
Application Domains
Safe Autonomous Driving & Intelligent Transportation
Developing perception and decision-making systems for autonomous vehicles that can safely interact with other road users, including first responders and vulnerable populations.
Robotic Perception & Planning
Creating intelligent robots that can perceive their environment, plan actions, and execute tasks in unstructured real-world settings.
Human-Machine Communication & Co-Creativity
Building systems that understand both verbal and non-verbal human communication, enabling natural and productive human-machine collaboration.