42,538 research outputs found
Batch Informed Trees (BIT*): Sampling-based Optimal Planning via the Heuristically Guided Search of Implicit Random Geometric Graphs
In this paper, we present Batch Informed Trees (BIT*), a planning algorithm
based on unifying graph- and sampling-based planning techniques. By recognizing
that a set of samples describes an implicit random geometric graph (RGG), we
are able to combine the efficient ordered nature of graph-based techniques,
such as A*, with the anytime scalability of sampling-based algorithms, such as
Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRT).
BIT* uses a heuristic to efficiently search a series of increasingly dense
implicit RGGs while reusing previous information. It can be viewed as an
extension of incremental graph-search techniques, such as Lifelong Planning A*
(LPA*), to continuous problem domains as well as a generalization of existing
sampling-based optimal planners. It is shown that it is probabilistically
complete and asymptotically optimal.
We demonstrate the utility of BIT* on simulated random worlds in
and and manipulation problems on CMU's HERB, a
14-DOF two-armed robot. On these problems, BIT* finds better solutions faster
than RRT, RRT*, Informed RRT*, and Fast Marching Trees (FMT*) with faster
anytime convergence towards the optimum, especially in high dimensions.Comment: 8 Pages. 6 Figures. Video available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQIoCC48gp
Computational Geometry Column 42
A compendium of thirty previously published open problems in computational
geometry is presented.Comment: 7 pages; 72 reference
Batch Informed Trees (BIT*): Informed Asymptotically Optimal Anytime Search
Path planning in robotics often requires finding high-quality solutions to
continuously valued and/or high-dimensional problems. These problems are
challenging and most planning algorithms instead solve simplified
approximations. Popular approximations include graphs and random samples, as
respectively used by informed graph-based searches and anytime sampling-based
planners. Informed graph-based searches, such as A*, traditionally use
heuristics to search a priori graphs in order of potential solution quality.
This makes their search efficient but leaves their performance dependent on the
chosen approximation. If its resolution is too low then they may not find a
(suitable) solution but if it is too high then they may take a prohibitively
long time to do so. Anytime sampling-based planners, such as RRT*,
traditionally use random sampling to approximate the problem domain
incrementally. This allows them to increase resolution until a suitable
solution is found but makes their search dependent on the order of
approximation. Arbitrary sequences of random samples approximate the problem
domain in every direction simultaneously and but may be prohibitively
inefficient at containing a solution. This paper unifies and extends these two
approaches to develop Batch Informed Trees (BIT*), an informed, anytime
sampling-based planner. BIT* solves continuous path planning problems
efficiently by using sampling and heuristics to alternately approximate and
search the problem domain. Its search is ordered by potential solution quality,
as in A*, and its approximation improves indefinitely with additional
computational time, as in RRT*. It is shown analytically to be almost-surely
asymptotically optimal and experimentally to outperform existing sampling-based
planners, especially on high-dimensional planning problems.Comment: International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR). 32 Pages. 16
Figure
Convergence Speed of the Consensus Algorithm with Interference and Sparse Long-Range Connectivity
We analyze the effect of interference on the convergence rate of average
consensus algorithms, which iteratively compute the measurement average by
message passing among nodes. It is usually assumed that these algorithms
converge faster with a greater exchange of information (i.e., by increased
network connectivity) in every iteration. However, when interference is taken
into account, it is no longer clear if the rate of convergence increases with
network connectivity. We study this problem for randomly-placed
consensus-seeking nodes connected through an interference-limited network. We
investigate the following questions: (a) How does the rate of convergence vary
with increasing communication range of each node? and (b) How does this result
change when each node is allowed to communicate with a few selected far-off
nodes? When nodes schedule their transmissions to avoid interference, we show
that the convergence speed scales with , where is the
communication range and is the number of dimensions. This scaling is the
result of two competing effects when increasing : Increased schedule length
for interference-free transmission vs. the speed gain due to improved
connectivity. Hence, although one-dimensional networks can converge faster from
a greater communication range despite increased interference, the two effects
exactly offset one another in two-dimensions. In higher dimensions, increasing
the communication range can actually degrade the rate of convergence. Our
results thus underline the importance of factoring in the effect of
interference in the design of distributed estimation algorithms.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figure
Spanners for Geometric Intersection Graphs
Efficient algorithms are presented for constructing spanners in geometric
intersection graphs. For a unit ball graph in R^k, a (1+\epsilon)-spanner is
obtained using efficient partitioning of the space into hypercubes and solving
bichromatic closest pair problems. The spanner construction has almost
equivalent complexity to the construction of Euclidean minimum spanning trees.
The results are extended to arbitrary ball graphs with a sub-quadratic running
time.
For unit ball graphs, the spanners have a small separator decomposition which
can be used to obtain efficient algorithms for approximating proximity problems
like diameter and distance queries. The results on compressed quadtrees,
geometric graph separators, and diameter approximation might be of independent
interest.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, Late
Activity recognition from videos with parallel hypergraph matching on GPUs
In this paper, we propose a method for activity recognition from videos based
on sparse local features and hypergraph matching. We benefit from special
properties of the temporal domain in the data to derive a sequential and fast
graph matching algorithm for GPUs.
Traditionally, graphs and hypergraphs are frequently used to recognize
complex and often non-rigid patterns in computer vision, either through graph
matching or point-set matching with graphs. Most formulations resort to the
minimization of a difficult discrete energy function mixing geometric or
structural terms with data attached terms involving appearance features.
Traditional methods solve this minimization problem approximately, for instance
with spectral techniques.
In this work, instead of solving the problem approximatively, the exact
solution for the optimal assignment is calculated in parallel on GPUs. The
graphical structure is simplified and regularized, which allows to derive an
efficient recursive minimization algorithm. The algorithm distributes
subproblems over the calculation units of a GPU, which solves them in parallel,
allowing the system to run faster than real-time on medium-end GPUs
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