Object Detection and Classification in the Visible and Infrared Spectrums

The over-arching theme of this dissertation is the development of automated detection and/or classification systems for challenging infrared scenarios. The six works presented herein can be categorized into four problem scenarios. In the first scenario, long-distance detection and classification of vehicles in thermal imagery, a custom convolutional network architecture is proposed for small thermal target detection. For the second scenario, thermal face landmark detection and thermal cross-spectral face verification, a publicly-available visible and thermal face dataset is introduced, along with benchmark results for several landmark detection and face verification algorithms. Furthermore, a novel visible-to-thermal transfer learning algorithm for face landmark detection is presented. The third scenario addresses near-infrared cross-spectral periocular recognition with a coupled conditional generative adversarial network guided by auxiliary synthetic loss functions. Finally, a deep sparse feature selection and fusion is proposed to detect the presence of textured contact lenses prior to near-infrared iris recognition

Multi-view Facial Landmark Detection

In this thesis, we tackle the problem of designing a multi-view facial landmark detector which is robust and works in real-time on low-end hardware. Our landmark detector is an instance of the structured output classi ers describing the face by a mixture of tree based Deformable Part Models (DPM). We propose to learn parameters of the detector by the Structured Output Support Vector Machine algorithm which, in contrast to existing methods, directly optimizes a loss function closely related to the standard evaluation metrics used in landmark detection. We also propose a novel two-stage approach to learn the multi-view landmark detectors, which provides better localization accuracy and signi cantly reduces the overall learning time. We propose several speedups that enable to use the globally optimal prediction strategy based on the dynamic programming in real time even for dense landmark sets. The empirical evaluation shows that the proposed detector is competitive with the current state-ofthe- art both regarding the accuracy and speed. We also propose two improvements of the Bundle Method for Regularized Risk Minimization (BMRM) algorithm which is among the most popular batch solvers used in structured output learning. First, we propose to augment the objective function by a quadratic prox-center whose strength is controlled by a novel adaptive strategy preventing zig-zag behavior in the cases when the genuine regularization term is weak. Second, we propose to speed up convergence by using multiple cutting plane models which better approximate the objective function with minimal increase in the computational cost. Experimental evaluation shows that the new BMRM algorithm which uses both improvements speeds up learning up to an order of magnitude on standard computer vision benchmarks, and 3 to 4 times when applied to the learning of the DPM based landmark detector. vKatedra kybernetik

Latency and accuracy optimized mobile face detection

Abstract. Face detection is a preprocessing step in many computer vision applications. Important factors are accuracy, inference duration, and energy efficiency of the detection framework. Computationally light detectors that execute in real-time are a requirement for many application areas, such as face tracking and recognition. Typical operating platforms in everyday use are smartphones and embedded devices, which have limited computation capacity. The capability of face detectors is comparable to the ability of a human in easy detection tasks. When the conditions change, the challenges become different. Current challenges in face detection include atypically posed and tiny faces. Partially occluded faces and dim or bright environments pose challenges for detection systems. State-of-the-art performance in face detection research employs deep learning methods called neural networks, which loosely imitate the mammalian brain system. The most relevant technologies are convolutional neural networks, which are designed for local feature description. In this thesis, the main computational optimization approach is neural network quantization. The network models were delegated to digital signal processors and graphics processing units. Quantization was shown to reduce the latency of computation substantially. The most energy-efficient inference was achieved through digital signal processor delegation. Multithreading was used for inference acceleration. It reduced the amount of energy consumption per algorithm run.Latenssi- ja tarkkuusoptimoitu kasvontunnistus mobiililaitteilla. Tiivistelmä. Kasvojen ilmaisu on esikäsittelyvaihe monelle konenäön sovellukselle. Tärkeitä kasvoilmaisimen ominaisuuksia ovat tarkkuus, energiatehokkuus ja suoritusnopeus. Monet sovellukset vaativat laskennallisesti kevyitä ilmaisimia, jotka toimivat reaaliajassa. Esimerkkejä sovelluksista ovat kasvojen seuranta- ja tunnistusjärjestelmät. Yleisiä käyttöalustoja ovat älypuhelimet ja sulautetut järjestelmät, joiden laskentakapasiteetti on rajallinen. Kasvonilmaisimien tarkkuus vastaa ihmisen kykyä helpoissa ilmaisuissa. Nykyiset ongelmat kasvojen ilmaisussa liittyvät epätyypillisiin asentoihin ja erityisen pieniin kasvokokoihin. Myös kasvojen osittainen peittyminen, ja pimeät ja kirkkaat ympäristöt, vaikeuttavat ilmaisua. Neuroverkkoja käytetään tekoälyjärjestelmissä, joiden lähtökohtana on ollut mallintaa nisäkkäiden aivojen toimintaa. Konvoluutiopohjaiset neuroverkot ovat erikoistuneet paikallisten piirteiden analysointiin. Tässä opinnäytetyössä käytetty laskennallisen optimoinnin menetelmä on neuroverkkojen kvantisointi. Neuroverkkojen ajo delegoitiin digitaalisille signaalinkäsittely- ja grafiikkasuorittimille. Kvantisoinnin osoitettiin vähentävän laskenta-aikaa huomattavasti ja suurin energiatehokkuus saavutettiin digitaalisen signaaliprosessorin avulla. Suoritusnopeutta lisättiin monisäikeistyksellä, jonka havaittiin vähentävän energiankulutusta

Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society

This book features the manuscripts accepted for the Special Issue “Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society—Sensing Systems and Pervasive Intelligence” of the MDPI journal Sensors. Most of the papers come from a selection of the best papers of the 2019 edition of the “Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society” (APPLEPIES) Conference, which was held in November 2019. All these papers have been significantly enhanced with novel experimental results. The papers give an overview of the trends in research and development activities concerning the pervasive application of electronics in industry, the environment, and society. The focus of these papers is on cyber physical systems (CPS), with research proposals for new sensor acquisition and ADC (analog to digital converter) methods, high-speed communication systems, cybersecurity, big data management, and data processing including emerging machine learning techniques. Physical implementation aspects are discussed as well as the trade-off found between functional performance and hardware/system costs

Manipulador aéreo con brazos antropomórficos de articulaciones flexibles

[Resumen] Este artículo presenta el primer robot manipulador aéreo con dos brazos antropomórficos diseñado para aplicarse en tareas de inspección y mantenimiento en entornos industriales de difícil acceso para operarios humanos. El robot consiste en una plataforma aérea multirrotor equipada con dos brazos antropomórficos ultraligeros, así como el sistema de control integrado de la plataforma y los brazos. Una de las principales características del manipulador es la flexibilidad mecánica proporcionada en todas las articulaciones, lo que aumenta la seguridad en las interacciones físicas con el entorno y la protección del propio robot. Para ello se ha introducido un compacto y simple mecanismo de transmisión por muelle entre el eje del servo y el enlace de salida. La estructura en aluminio de los brazos ha sido cuidadosamente diseñada de forma que los actuadores estén aislados frente a cargas radiales y axiales que los puedan dañar. El manipulador desarrollado ha sido validado a través de experimentos en base fija y en pruebas de vuelo en exteriores.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; DPI2014-5983-C2-1-

Personality Identification from Social Media Using Deep Learning: A Review

Social media helps in sharing of ideas and information among people scattered around the world and thus helps in creating communities, groups, and virtual networks. Identification of personality is significant in many types of applications such as in detecting the mental state or character of a person, predicting job satisfaction, professional and personal relationship success, in recommendation systems. Personality is also an important factor to determine individual variation in thoughts, feelings, and conduct systems. According to the survey of Global social media research in 2018, approximately 3.196 billion social media users are in worldwide. The numbers are estimated to grow rapidly further with the use of mobile smart devices and advancement in technology. Support vector machine (SVM), Naive Bayes (NB), Multilayer perceptron neural network, and convolutional neural network (CNN) are some of the machine learning techniques used for personality identification in the literature review. This paper presents various studies conducted in identifying the personality of social media users with the help of machine learning approaches and the recent studies that targeted to predict the personality of online social media (OSM) users are reviewed

Iowa State University, Courses and Programs Catalog 2014–2015

The Iowa State University Catalog is a one-year publication which lists all academic policies, and procedures. The catalog also includes the following: information for fees; curriculum requirements; first-year courses of study for over 100 undergraduate majors; course descriptions for nearly 5000 undergraduate and graduate courses; and a listing of faculty members at Iowa State University.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/catalog/1025/thumbnail.jp