Scalable Approach to Uncertainty Quantification and Robust Design of Interconnected Dynamical Systems

Development of robust dynamical systems and networks such as autonomous aircraft systems capable of accomplishing complex missions faces challenges due to the dynamically evolving uncertainties coming from model uncertainties, necessity to operate in a hostile cluttered urban environment, and the distributed and dynamic nature of the communication and computation resources. Model-based robust design is difficult because of the complexity of the hybrid dynamic models including continuous vehicle dynamics, the discrete models of computations and communications, and the size of the problem. We will overview recent advances in methodology and tools to model, analyze, and design robust autonomous aerospace systems operating in uncertain environment, with stress on efficient uncertainty quantification and robust design using the case studies of the mission including model-based target tracking and search, and trajectory planning in uncertain urban environment. To show that the methodology is generally applicable to uncertain dynamical systems, we will also show examples of application of the new methods to efficient uncertainty quantification of energy usage in buildings, and stability assessment of interconnected power networks

Event-based Vision: A Survey

Event cameras are bio-inspired sensors that differ from conventional frame cameras: Instead of capturing images at a fixed rate, they asynchronously measure per-pixel brightness changes, and output a stream of events that encode the time, location and sign of the brightness changes. Event cameras offer attractive properties compared to traditional cameras: high temporal resolution (in the order of microseconds), very high dynamic range (140 dB vs. 60 dB), low power consumption, and high pixel bandwidth (on the order of kHz) resulting in reduced motion blur. Hence, event cameras have a large potential for robotics and computer vision in challenging scenarios for traditional cameras, such as low-latency, high speed, and high dynamic range. However, novel methods are required to process the unconventional output of these sensors in order to unlock their potential. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging field of event-based vision, with a focus on the applications and the algorithms developed to unlock the outstanding properties of event cameras. We present event cameras from their working principle, the actual sensors that are available and the tasks that they have been used for, from low-level vision (feature detection and tracking, optic flow, etc.) to high-level vision (reconstruction, segmentation, recognition). We also discuss the techniques developed to process events, including learning-based techniques, as well as specialized processors for these novel sensors, such as spiking neural networks. Additionally, we highlight the challenges that remain to be tackled and the opportunities that lie ahead in the search for a more efficient, bio-inspired way for machines to perceive and interact with the world

2D Reconstruction of Small Intestine's Interior Wall

Examining and interpreting of a large number of wireless endoscopic images from the gastrointestinal tract is a tiresome task for physicians. A practical solution is to automatically construct a two dimensional representation of the gastrointestinal tract for easy inspection. However, little has been done on wireless endoscopic image stitching, let alone systematic investigation. The proposed new wireless endoscopic image stitching method consists of two main steps to improve the accuracy and efficiency of image registration. First, the keypoints are extracted by Principle Component Analysis and Scale Invariant Feature Transform (PCA-SIFT) algorithm and refined with Maximum Likelihood Estimation SAmple Consensus (MLESAC) outlier removal to find the most reliable keypoints. Second, the optimal transformation parameters obtained from first step are fed to the Normalised Mutual Information (NMI) algorithm as an initial solution. With modified Marquardt-Levenberg search strategy in a multiscale framework, the NMI can find the optimal transformation parameters in the shortest time. The proposed methodology has been tested on two different datasets - one with real wireless endoscopic images and another with images obtained from Micro-Ball (a new wireless cubic endoscopy system with six image sensors). The results have demonstrated the accuracy and robustness of the proposed methodology both visually and quantitatively.Comment: Journal draf

Inferring transportation modes from GPS trajectories using a convolutional neural network

Identifying the distribution of users' transportation modes is an essential part of travel demand analysis and transportation planning. With the advent of ubiquitous GPS-enabled devices (e.g., a smartphone), a cost-effective approach for inferring commuters' mobility mode(s) is to leverage their GPS trajectories. A majority of studies have proposed mode inference models based on hand-crafted features and traditional machine learning algorithms. However, manual features engender some major drawbacks including vulnerability to traffic and environmental conditions as well as possessing human's bias in creating efficient features. One way to overcome these issues is by utilizing Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) schemes that are capable of automatically driving high-level features from the raw input. Accordingly, in this paper, we take advantage of CNN architectures so as to predict travel modes based on only raw GPS trajectories, where the modes are labeled as walk, bike, bus, driving, and train. Our key contribution is designing the layout of the CNN's input layer in such a way that not only is adaptable with the CNN schemes but represents fundamental motion characteristics of a moving object including speed, acceleration, jerk, and bearing rate. Furthermore, we ameliorate the quality of GPS logs through several data preprocessing steps. Using the clean input layer, a variety of CNN configurations are evaluated to achieve the best CNN architecture. The highest accuracy of 84.8% has been achieved through the ensemble of the best CNN configuration. In this research, we contrast our methodology with traditional machine learning algorithms as well as the seminal and most related studies to demonstrate the superiority of our framework.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 7 tables, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologie

Shot boundary detection in MPEG videos using local and global indicators

Shot boundary detection (SBD) plays important roles in many video applications. In this letter, we describe a novel method on SBD operating directly in the compressed domain. First, several local indicators are extracted from MPEG macroblocks, and AdaBoost is employed for feature selection and fusion. The selected features are then used in classifying candidate cuts into five sub-spaces via pre-filtering and rule-based decision making. Following that, global indicators of frame similarity between boundary frames of cut candidates are examined using phase correlation of dc images. Gradual transitions like fade, dissolve, and combined shot cuts are also identified. Experimental results on the test data from TRECVID'07 have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of our proposed methodology. * INSPEC o Controlled Indexing decision making , image segmentation , knowledge based systems , video coding o Non Controlled Indexing AdaBoost , MPEG videos , feature selection , global indicator , local indicator , rule-based decision making , shot boundary detection , video segmentation * Author Keywords Decision making , TRECVID , shot boundary detection (SBD) , video segmentation , video signal processing References 1. J. Yuan , H. Wang , L. Xiao , W. Zheng , J. L. F. Lin and B. Zhang "A formal study of shot boundary detection", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 17, pp. 168 2007. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (2789KB) 2. C. Grana and R. Cucchiara "Linear transition detection as a unified shot detection approach", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 17, pp. 483 2007. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (505KB) 3. Q. Urhan , M. K. Gullu and S. Erturk "Modified phase-correlation based robust hard-cut detection with application to archive film", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 16, pp. 753 2006. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (3808KB) 4. C. Cotsaces , N. Nikolaidis and I. Pitas "Video shot detection and condensed representation: A review", Proc. IEEE Signal Mag., vol. 23, pp. 28 2006. 5. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), pp. [online] Available: http://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/trecvid/ 6. J. Bescos "Real-time shot change detection over online MPEG-2 video", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 14, pp. 475 2004. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (1056KB) 7. H. Lu and Y. P. Tan "An effective post-refinement method for shot boundary detection", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 15, pp. 1407 2005. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (3128KB) 8. G. Boccignone , A. Chianese , V. Moscato and A. Picariello "Foveated shot detection for video segmentation", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 15, pp. 365 2005. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (2152KB) 9. Z. Cernekova , I. Pitas and C. Nikou "Information theory-based shot cut/fade detection and video summarization", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 16, pp. 82 2006. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (1184KB) 10. L.-Y. Duan , M. Xu , Q. Tian , C.-S. Xu and J. S. Jin "A unified framework for semantic shot classification in sports video", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 7, pp. 1066 2005. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (2872KB) 11. H. Fang , J. M. Jiang and Y. Feng "A fuzzy logic approach for detection of video shot boundaries", Pattern Recogn., vol. 39, pp. 2092 2006. [CrossRef] 12. R. A. Joyce and B. Liu "Temporal segmentation of video using frame and histogram space", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 8, pp. 130 2006. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (864KB) 13. A. Hanjalic "Shot boundary detection: Unraveled and resolved", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 12, pp. 90 2002. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (289KB) 14. S.-C. Pei and Y.-Z. Chou "Efficient MPEG compressed video analysis using macroblock type information", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 1, pp. 321 1999. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (612KB) 15. C.-L. Huang and B.-Y. Liao "A robust scene-change detection method for video segmentation", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 11, pp. 1281 2001. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (241KB) 16. Y. Freund and R. E. Schapire "A decision-theoretic generalization of online learning and an application to boosting", J. Comput. Syst. Sci., vol. 55, pp. 119 1997. [CrossRef] On this page * Abstract * Index Terms * References Brought to you by STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY * Your institute subscribes to: * IEEE-Wiley eBooks Library , IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL) * What can I access? Terms of Us