Closed-loop Bayesian Semantic Data Fusion for Collaborative Human-Autonomy Target Search

In search applications, autonomous unmanned vehicles must be able to efficiently reacquire and localize mobile targets that can remain out of view for long periods of time in large spaces. As such, all available information sources must be actively leveraged -- including imprecise but readily available semantic observations provided by humans. To achieve this, this work develops and validates a novel collaborative human-machine sensing solution for dynamic target search. Our approach uses continuous partially observable Markov decision process (CPOMDP) planning to generate vehicle trajectories that optimally exploit imperfect detection data from onboard sensors, as well as semantic natural language observations that can be specifically requested from human sensors. The key innovation is a scalable hierarchical Gaussian mixture model formulation for efficiently solving CPOMDPs with semantic observations in continuous dynamic state spaces. The approach is demonstrated and validated with a real human-robot team engaged in dynamic indoor target search and capture scenarios on a custom testbed.Comment: Final version accepted and submitted to 2018 FUSION Conference (Cambridge, UK, July 2018

Factored state-abstract hidden Markov models for activity recognition using pervasive multi-modal sensors

Current probabilistic models for activity recognition do not incorporate much sensory input data due to the problem of state space explosion. In this paper, we propose a model for activity recognition, called the Factored State-Abtract Hidden Markov Model (FS-AHMM) to allow us to integrate many sensors for improving recognition performance. The proposed FS-AHMM is an extension of the Abstract Hidden Markov Model which applies the concept of factored state representations to compactly represent the state transitions. The parameters of the FS-AHMM are estimated using the EM algorithm from the data acquired through multiple multi-modal sensors and cameras. The model is evaluated and compared with other existing models on real-world data. The results show that the proposed model outperforms other models and that the integrated sensor information helps in recognizing activity more accurately

Feature Markov Decision Processes

General purpose intelligent learning agents cycle through (complex,non-MDP) sequences of observations, actions, and rewards. On the other hand, reinforcement learning is well-developed for small finite state Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). So far it is an art performed by human designers to extract the right state representation out of the bare observations, i.e. to reduce the agent setup to the MDP framework. Before we can think of mechanizing this search for suitable MDPs, we need a formal objective criterion. The main contribution of this article is to develop such a criterion. I also integrate the various parts into one learning algorithm. Extensions to more realistic dynamic Bayesian networks are developed in a companion article.Comment: 7 page