28,315 research outputs found
Chance-Constrained Trajectory Optimization for Safe Exploration and Learning of Nonlinear Systems
Learning-based control algorithms require data collection with abundant
supervision for training. Safe exploration algorithms ensure the safety of this
data collection process even when only partial knowledge is available. We
present a new approach for optimal motion planning with safe exploration that
integrates chance-constrained stochastic optimal control with dynamics learning
and feedback control. We derive an iterative convex optimization algorithm that
solves an \underline{Info}rmation-cost \underline{S}tochastic
\underline{N}onlinear \underline{O}ptimal \underline{C}ontrol problem
(Info-SNOC). The optimization objective encodes both optimal performance and
exploration for learning, and the safety is incorporated as distributionally
robust chance constraints. The dynamics are predicted from a robust regression
model that is learned from data. The Info-SNOC algorithm is used to compute a
sub-optimal pool of safe motion plans that aid in exploration for learning
unknown residual dynamics under safety constraints. A stable feedback
controller is used to execute the motion plan and collect data for model
learning. We prove the safety of rollout from our exploration method and
reduction in uncertainty over epochs, thereby guaranteeing the consistency of
our learning method. We validate the effectiveness of Info-SNOC by designing
and implementing a pool of safe trajectories for a planar robot. We demonstrate
that our approach has higher success rate in ensuring safety when compared to a
deterministic trajectory optimization approach.Comment: Submitted to RA-L 2020, review-
Chance-Constrained Trajectory Optimization for Safe Exploration and Learning of Nonlinear Systems
Learning-based control algorithms require data collection with abundant supervision for training. Safe exploration algorithms ensure the safety of this data collection process even when only partial knowledge is available. We present a new approach for optimal motion planning with safe exploration that integrates chance-constrained stochastic optimal control with dynamics learning and feedback control. We derive an iterative convex optimization algorithm that solves an Information-cost Stochastic Nonlinear Optimal Control problem (Info-SNOC). The optimization objective encodes control cost for performance and exploration cost for learning, and the safety is incorporated as distributionally robust chance constraints. The dynamics are predicted from a robust regression model that is learned from data. The Info-SNOC algorithm is used to compute a sub-optimal pool of safe motion plans that aid in exploration for learning unknown residual dynamics under safety constraints. A stable feedback controller is used to execute the motion plan and collect data for model learning. We prove the safety of rollout from our exploration method and reduction in uncertainty over epochs, thereby guaranteeing the consistency of our learning method. We validate the effectiveness of Info-SNOC by designing and implementing a pool of safe trajectories for a planar robot. We demonstrate that our approach has higher success rate in ensuring safety when compared to a deterministic trajectory optimization approach
Practical Bayesian optimization in the presence of outliers
Inference in the presence of outliers is an important field of research as
outliers are ubiquitous and may arise across a variety of problems and domains.
Bayesian optimization is method that heavily relies on probabilistic inference.
This allows outstanding sample efficiency because the probabilistic machinery
provides a memory of the whole optimization process. However, that virtue
becomes a disadvantage when the memory is populated with outliers, inducing
bias in the estimation. In this paper, we present an empirical evaluation of
Bayesian optimization methods in the presence of outliers. The empirical
evidence shows that Bayesian optimization with robust regression often produces
suboptimal results. We then propose a new algorithm which combines robust
regression (a Gaussian process with Student-t likelihood) with outlier
diagnostics to classify data points as outliers or inliers. By using an
scheduler for the classification of outliers, our method is more efficient and
has better convergence over the standard robust regression. Furthermore, we
show that even in controlled situations with no expected outliers, our method
is able to produce better results.Comment: 10 pages (2 of references), 6 figures, 1 algorith
Towards Visual Ego-motion Learning in Robots
Many model-based Visual Odometry (VO) algorithms have been proposed in the
past decade, often restricted to the type of camera optics, or the underlying
motion manifold observed. We envision robots to be able to learn and perform
these tasks, in a minimally supervised setting, as they gain more experience.
To this end, we propose a fully trainable solution to visual ego-motion
estimation for varied camera optics. We propose a visual ego-motion learning
architecture that maps observed optical flow vectors to an ego-motion density
estimate via a Mixture Density Network (MDN). By modeling the architecture as a
Conditional Variational Autoencoder (C-VAE), our model is able to provide
introspective reasoning and prediction for ego-motion induced scene-flow.
Additionally, our proposed model is especially amenable to bootstrapped
ego-motion learning in robots where the supervision in ego-motion estimation
for a particular camera sensor can be obtained from standard navigation-based
sensor fusion strategies (GPS/INS and wheel-odometry fusion). Through
experiments, we show the utility of our proposed approach in enabling the
concept of self-supervised learning for visual ego-motion estimation in
autonomous robots.Comment: Conference paper; Submitted to IEEE/RSJ International Conference on
Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2017, Vancouver CA; 8 pages, 8 figures,
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