1,666 research outputs found
Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law
This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (âAIâ) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics â and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the CatĂłlica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
On the path integration system of insects: there and back again
Navigation is an essential capability of animate organisms and robots. Among animate organisms of particular interest are insects because they are capable of a variety of navigation competencies solving challenging problems with limited resources, thereby providing inspiration for robot navigation.
Ants, bees and other insects are able to return to their nest using a navigation strategy known as path integration. During path integration, the animal maintains a running estimate of the distance and direction to its nest as it travels. This estimate, known as the `home vector', enables the animal to return to its nest.
Path integration was the technique used by sea navigators to cross the open seas in the past. To perform path integration, both sailors and insects need access to two pieces of information, their direction and their speed of motion over time. Neurons encoding the heading and speed have been found to converge on a highly conserved region of the insect brain, the central complex. It is, therefore, believed that the central complex is key to the computations pertaining to path integration.
However, several questions remain about the exact structure of the neuronal circuit that tracks the animal's heading, how it differs between insect species, and how the speed and direction are integrated into a home vector and maintained in memory. In this thesis, I have combined behavioural, anatomical, and physiological data with computational modelling and agent simulations to tackle these questions.
Analysis of the internal compass circuit of two insect species with highly divergent ecologies, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria, revealed that despite 400 million years of evolutionary divergence, both species share a fundamentally common internal compass circuit that keeps track of the animal's heading. However, subtle differences in the neuronal morphologies result in distinct circuit dynamics adapted to the ecology of each species, thereby providing insights into how neural circuits evolved to accommodate species-specific behaviours.
The fast-moving insects need to update their home vector memory continuously as they move, yet they can remember it for several hours. This conjunction of fast updating and long persistence of the home vector does not directly map to current short, mid, and long-term memory accounts. An extensive literature review revealed a lack of available memory models that could support the home vector memory requirements.
A comparison of existing behavioural data with the homing behaviour of simulated robot agents illustrated that the prevalent hypothesis, which posits that the neural substrate of the path integration memory is a bump attractor network, is contradicted by behavioural evidence.
An investigation of the type of memory utilised during path integration revealed that cold-induced anaesthesia disrupts the ability of ants to return to their nest, but it does not eliminate their ability to move in the correct homing direction. Using computational modelling and simulated agents, I argue that the best explanation for this phenomenon is not two separate memories differently affected by temperature but a shared memory that encodes both the direction and distance.
The results presented in this thesis shed some more light on the labyrinth that researchers of animal navigation have been exploring in their attempts to unravel a few more rounds of Ariadne's thread back to its origin. The findings provide valuable insights into the path integration system of insects and inspiration for future memory research, advancing path integration techniques in robotics, and developing novel neuromorphic solutions to computational problems
On Age-of-Information Aware Resource Allocation for Industrial Control-Communication-Codesign
Unter dem Ăberbegriff Industrie 4.0 wird in der industriellen Fertigung die zunehmende Digitalisierung und Vernetzung von industriellen Maschinen und Prozessen zusammengefasst. Die drahtlose, hoch-zuverlĂ€ssige, niedrig-latente Kommunikation (engl. ultra-reliable low-latency communication, URLLC) â als Bestandteil von 5G gewĂ€hrleistet höchste DienstgĂŒten, die mit industriellen drahtgebundenen Technologien vergleichbar sind und wird deshalb als Wegbereiter von Industrie 4.0 gesehen. Entgegen diesem Trend haben eine Reihe von Arbeiten im Forschungsbereich der vernetzten Regelungssysteme (engl. networked control systems, NCS) gezeigt, dass die hohen DienstgĂŒten von URLLC nicht notwendigerweise erforderlich sind, um eine hohe RegelgĂŒte zu erzielen. Das Co-Design von Kommunikation und Regelung ermöglicht eine gemeinsame Optimierung von RegelgĂŒte und Netzwerkparametern durch die Aufweichung der Grenze zwischen Netzwerk- und Applikationsschicht. Durch diese VerschrĂ€nkung wird jedoch eine fundamentale (gemeinsame) Neuentwicklung von Regelungssystemen und Kommunikationsnetzen nötig, was ein Hindernis fĂŒr die Verbreitung dieses Ansatzes darstellt. Stattdessen bedient sich diese Dissertation einem Co-Design-Ansatz, der beide DomĂ€nen weiterhin eindeutig voneinander abgrenzt, aber das Informationsalter (engl. age of information, AoI) als bedeutenden Schnittstellenparameter ausnutzt.
Diese Dissertation trĂ€gt dazu bei, die EchtzeitanwendungszuverlĂ€ssigkeit als Folge der Ăberschreitung eines vorgegebenen Informationsalterschwellenwerts zu quantifizieren und fokussiert sich dabei auf den Paketverlust als Ursache. Anhand der Beispielanwendung eines fahrerlosen Transportsystems wird gezeigt, dass die zeitlich negative Korrelation von Paketfehlern, die in heutigen Systemen keine Rolle spielt, fĂŒr Echtzeitanwendungen Ă€uĂerst vorteilhaft ist. Mit der Annahme von schnellem Schwund als dominanter Fehlerursache auf der Luftschnittstelle werden durch zeitdiskrete Markovmodelle, die fĂŒr die zwei Netzwerkarchitekturen Single-Hop und Dual-Hop prĂ€sentiert werden, Kommunikationsfehlerfolgen auf einen Applikationsfehler abgebildet. Diese Modellierung ermöglicht die analytische Ableitung von anwendungsbezogenen ZuverlĂ€ssigkeitsmetriken wie die durschnittliche Dauer bis zu einem Fehler (engl. mean time to failure). FĂŒr Single-Hop-Netze wird das neuartige Ressourcenallokationsschema State-Aware Resource Allocation (SARA) entwickelt, das auf dem Informationsalter beruht und die AnwendungszuverlĂ€ssigkeit im Vergleich zu statischer Multi-KonnektivitĂ€t um GröĂenordnungen erhöht, wĂ€hrend der Ressourcenverbrauch im Bereich von konventioneller EinzelkonnektivitĂ€t bleibt.
Diese ZuverlĂ€ssigkeit kann auch innerhalb eines Systems von Regelanwendungen, in welchem mehrere Agenten um eine begrenzte Anzahl Ressourcen konkurrieren, statistisch garantiert werden, wenn die Anzahl der verfĂŒgbaren Ressourcen pro Agent um ca. 10 % erhöht werden. FĂŒr das Dual-Hop Szenario wird darĂŒberhinaus ein Optimierungsverfahren vorgestellt, das eine benutzerdefinierte Kostenfunktion minimiert, die niedrige AnwendungszuverlĂ€ssigkeit, hohes Informationsalter und hohen durchschnittlichen Ressourcenverbrauch bestraft und so das benutzerdefinierte optimale SARA-Schema ableitet. Diese Optimierung kann offline durchgefĂŒhrt und als Look-Up-Table in der unteren Medienzugriffsschicht zukĂŒnftiger industrieller Drahtlosnetze implementiert werden.:1. Introduction 1
1.1. The Need for an Industrial Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Related Work 7
2.1. Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2. Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3. Codesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3.1. The Need for Abstraction â Age of Information . . . . . . . . 11
2.4. Dependability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Deriving Proper Communications Requirements 17
3.1. Fundamentals of Control Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.1. Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.2. Performance Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.3. Packet Losses and Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2. Joint Design of Control Loop with Packet Losses . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.1. Method 1: Reduced Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.2. Method 2: Markov Jump Linear System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3. Focus Application: The AGV Use Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3.1. Control Loop Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3.2. Control Performance Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.3.3. Joint Modeling: Applying Reduced Sampling . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3.4. Joint Modeling: Applying MJLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4. Modeling Control-Communication Failures 43
4.1. Communication Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1.1. Small-Scale Fading as a Cause of Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.1.2. Connectivity Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.2. Failure Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2.1. Single-hop network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2.2. Dual-hop network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3. Performance Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.1. Mean Time to Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.2. Packet Loss Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.3. Average Number of Assigned Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.4. Age of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5. Single Hop â Single Agent 61
5.1. State-Aware Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.3. Erroneous Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6. Single Hop â Multiple Agents 71
6.1. Failure Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.1.1. Admission Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.1.2. Transition Probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6.1.3. Computational Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.1.4. Performance Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.2. Illustration Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.3.1. Verification through System-Level Simulation . . . . . . . . . 78
6.3.2. Applicability on the System Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.3.3. Comparison of Admission Control Schemes . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.3.4. Impact of the Packet Loss Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6.3.5. Impact of the Number of Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.3.6. Age of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.3.7. Channel Saturation Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.3.8. Enforcing Full Channel Saturation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7. Dual Hop â Single Agent 91
7.1. State-Aware Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.2. Optimization Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.3.1. Extensive Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7.3.2. Non-Integer-Constrained Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
7.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
8. Conclusions and Outlook 105
8.1. Key Results and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8.2. Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
A. DC Motor Model 111
Bibliography 113
Publications of the Author 127
List of Figures 129
List of Tables 131
List of Operators and Constants 133
List of Symbols 135
List of Acronyms 137
Curriculum Vitae 139In industrial manufacturing, Industry 4.0 refers to the ongoing convergence of the real and virtual worlds, enabled through intelligently interconnecting industrial machines and processes through information and communications technology. Ultrareliable low-latency communication (URLLC) is widely regarded as the enabling technology for Industry 4.0 due to its ability to fulfill highest quality-of-service (QoS) comparable to those of industrial wireline connections. In contrast to this trend, a range of works in the research domain of networked control systems have shown that URLLCâs supreme QoS is not necessarily required to achieve high quality-ofcontrol; the co-design of control and communication enables to jointly optimize and balance both quality-of-control parameters and network parameters through blurring the boundary between application and network layer. However, through the tight interlacing, this approach requires a fundamental (joint) redesign of both control systems and communication networks and may therefore not lead to short-term widespread adoption. Therefore, this thesis instead embraces a novel co-design approach which keeps both domains distinct but leverages the combination of control and communications by yet exploiting the age of information (AoI) as a valuable interface metric.
This thesis contributes to quantifying application dependability as a consequence of exceeding a given peak AoI with the particular focus on packet losses. The beneficial influence of negative temporal packet loss correlation on control performance is demonstrated by means of the automated guided vehicle use case. Assuming small-scale fading as the dominant cause of communication failure, a series of communication failures are mapped to an application failure through discrete-time Markov models for single-hop (e.g, only uplink or downlink) and dual-hop (e.g., subsequent uplink and downlink) architectures. This enables the derivation of application-related dependability metrics such as the mean time to failure in closed form. For single-hop networks, an AoI-aware resource allocation strategy termed state-aware resource allocation (SARA) is proposed that increases the application reliability by orders of magnitude compared to static multi-connectivity while keeping the resource consumption in the range of best-effort single-connectivity. This dependability can also be statistically guaranteed on a system level â where multiple agents compete for a limited number of resources â if the provided amount of resources per agent is increased by approximately 10 %. For the dual-hop scenario, an AoI-aware resource allocation optimization is developed that minimizes a user-defined penalty function that punishes low application reliability, high AoI, and high average resource consumption. This optimization may be carried out offline and each resulting optimal SARA scheme may be implemented as a look-up table in the lower medium access control layer of future wireless industrial networks.:1. Introduction 1
1.1. The Need for an Industrial Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Related Work 7
2.1. Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2. Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3. Codesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3.1. The Need for Abstraction â Age of Information . . . . . . . . 11
2.4. Dependability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. Deriving Proper Communications Requirements 17
3.1. Fundamentals of Control Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.1. Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.2. Performance Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.3. Packet Losses and Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2. Joint Design of Control Loop with Packet Losses . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.1. Method 1: Reduced Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.2. Method 2: Markov Jump Linear System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3. Focus Application: The AGV Use Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3.1. Control Loop Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3.2. Control Performance Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.3.3. Joint Modeling: Applying Reduced Sampling . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3.4. Joint Modeling: Applying MJLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4. Modeling Control-Communication Failures 43
4.1. Communication Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1.1. Small-Scale Fading as a Cause of Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.1.2. Connectivity Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.2. Failure Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2.1. Single-hop network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2.2. Dual-hop network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3. Performance Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.1. Mean Time to Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.2. Packet Loss Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.3. Average Number of Assigned Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.4. Age of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5. Single Hop â Single Agent 61
5.1. State-Aware Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.3. Erroneous Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6. Single Hop â Multiple Agents 71
6.1. Failure Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.1.1. Admission Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.1.2. Transition Probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6.1.3. Computational Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
6.1.4. Performance Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.2. Illustration Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.3.1. Verification through System-Level Simulation . . . . . . . . . 78
6.3.2. Applicability on the System Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.3.3. Comparison of Admission Control Schemes . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.3.4. Impact of the Packet Loss Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6.3.5. Impact of the Number of Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.3.6. Age of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.3.7. Channel Saturation Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.3.8. Enforcing Full Channel Saturation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7. Dual Hop â Single Agent 91
7.1. State-Aware Resource Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.2. Optimization Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.3.1. Extensive Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7.3.2. Non-Integer-Constrained Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
7.4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
8. Conclusions and Outlook 105
8.1. Key Results and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8.2. Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
A. DC Motor Model 111
Bibliography 113
Publications of the Author 127
List of Figures 129
List of Tables 131
List of Operators and Constants 133
List of Symbols 135
List of Acronyms 137
Curriculum Vitae 13
Autonomous Vehicles an overview on system, cyber security, risks, issues, and a way forward
This chapter explores the complex realm of autonomous cars, analyzing their
fundamental components and operational characteristics. The initial phase of
the discussion is elucidating the internal mechanics of these automobiles,
encompassing the crucial involvement of sensors, artificial intelligence (AI)
identification systems, control mechanisms, and their integration with
cloud-based servers within the framework of the Internet of Things (IoT). It
delves into practical implementations of autonomous cars, emphasizing their
utilization in forecasting traffic patterns and transforming the dynamics of
transportation. The text also explores the topic of Robotic Process Automation
(RPA), illustrating the impact of autonomous cars on different businesses
through the automation of tasks. The primary focus of this investigation lies
in the realm of cybersecurity, specifically in the context of autonomous
vehicles. A comprehensive analysis will be conducted to explore various risk
management solutions aimed at protecting these vehicles from potential threats
including ethical, environmental, legal, professional, and social dimensions,
offering a comprehensive perspective on their societal implications. A
strategic plan for addressing the challenges and proposing strategies for
effectively traversing the complex terrain of autonomous car systems,
cybersecurity, hazards, and other concerns are some resources for acquiring an
understanding of the intricate realm of autonomous cars and their ramifications
in contemporary society, supported by a comprehensive compilation of resources
for additional investigation.
Keywords: RPA, Cyber Security, AV, Risk, Smart Car
Probabilistic Inference for Model Based Control
Robotic systems are essential for enhancing productivity, automation, and performing hazardous tasks. Addressing the unpredictability of physical systems, this thesis advances robotic planning and control under uncertainty, introducing learning-based methods for managing uncertain parameters and adapting to changing environments in real-time.
Our first contribution is a framework using Bayesian statistics for likelihood-free inference of model parameters. This allows employing complex simulators for designing efficient, robust controllers. The method, integrating the unscented transform with a variant of information theoretical model predictive control, shows better performance in trajectory evaluation compared to Monte Carlo sampling, easing the computational load in various control and robotics tasks.
Next, we reframe robotic planning and control as a Bayesian inference problem, focusing on the posterior distribution of actions and model parameters. An implicit variational inference algorithm, performing Stein Variational Gradient Descent, estimates distributions over model parameters and control inputs in real-time. This Bayesian approach effectively handles complex multi-modal posterior distributions, vital for dynamic and realistic robot navigation.
Finally, we tackle diversity in high-dimensional spaces. Our approach mitigates underestimation of uncertainty in posterior distributions, which leads to locally optimal solutions. Using the theory of rough paths, we develop an algorithm for parallel trajectory optimisation, enhancing solution diversity and avoiding mode collapse. This method extends our variational inference approach for trajectory estimation, employing diversity-enhancing kernels and leveraging path signature representation of trajectories. Empirical tests, ranging from 2-D navigation to robotic manipulators in cluttered environments, affirm our method's efficiency, outperforming existing alternatives
Modern meat: the next generation of meat from cells
Modern Meat is the first textbook on cultivated meat, with contributions from over 100 experts within the cultivated meat community.
The Sections of Modern Meat comprise 5 broad categories of cultivated meat: Context, Impact, Science, Society, and World.
The 19 chapters of Modern Meat, spread across these 5 sections, provide detailed entries on cultivated meat. They extensively tour a range of topics including the impact of cultivated meat on humans and animals, the bioprocess of cultivated meat production, how cultivated meat may become a food option in Space and on Mars, and how cultivated meat may impact the economy, culture, and tradition of Asia
Shaped-based IMU/Camera Tightly Coupled Object-level SLAM using Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filtering
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a decades-old problem. The classical solution to this problem utilizes entities such as feature points that cannot facilitate the interactions between a robot and its environment (e.g., grabbing objects). Recent advances in deep learning have paved the way to accurately detect objects in the image under various illumination conditions and occlusions. This led to the emergence of object-level solutions to the SLAM problem. Current object-level methods depend on an initial solution using classical approaches and assume that errors are Gaussian. This research develops a standalone solution to object-level SLAM that integrates the data from a monocular camera and an IMU (available in low-end devices) using Rao Blackwellized Particle Filter (RBPF). RBPF does not assume Gaussian distribution for the error; thus, it can handle a variety of scenarios (such as when a symmetrical object with pose ambiguities is encountered). The developed method utilizes shape instead of texture; therefore, texture-less objects can be incorporated into the solution. In the particle weighing process, a new method is developed that utilizes the Intersection over the Union (IoU) area of the observed and projected boundaries of the object that does not require point-to-point correspondence. Thus, it is not prone to false data correspondences. Landmark initialization is another important challenge for object-level SLAM. In the state-of-the-art delayed initialization, the trajectory estimation only relies on the motion model provided by IMU mechanization (during the initialization), leading to large errors. In this thesis, two novel undelayed initializations are developed. One relies only on a monocular camera and IMU, and the other utilizes an ultrasonic rangefinder as well. The developed object-level SLAM is tested using wheeled robots and handheld devices, and an error (in the position) of 4.1 to 13.1 cm (0.005 to 0.028 of the total path length) has been obtained through extensive experiments using only a single object. These experiments are conducted in different indoor environments under different conditions (e.g. illumination). Further, it is shown that undelayed initialization using an ultrasonic sensor can reduce the algorithm's runtime by half
Evaluating EEGâEMG Fusion-Based Classification as a Method for Improving Control of Wearable Robotic Devices for Upper-Limb Rehabilitation
Musculoskeletal disorders are the biggest cause of disability worldwide, and wearable mechatronic rehabilitation devices have been proposed for treatment. However, before widespread adoption, improvements in user control and system adaptability are required. User intention should be detected intuitively, and user-induced changes in system dynamics should be unobtrusively identified and corrected. Developments often focus on model-dependent nonlinear control theory, which is challenging to implement for wearable devices.
One alternative is to incorporate bioelectrical signal-based machine learning into the system, allowing for simpler controller designs to be augmented by supplemental brain (electroencephalography/EEG) and muscle (electromyography/EMG) information. To extract user intention better, sensor fusion techniques have been proposed to combine EEG and EMG; however, further development is required to enhance the capabilities of EEGâEMG fusion beyond basic motion classification. To this end, the goals of this thesis were to investigate expanded methods of EEGâEMG fusion and to develop a novel control system based on the incorporation of EEGâEMG fusion classifiers.
A dataset of EEG and EMG signals were collected during dynamic elbow flexionâextension motions and used to develop EEGâEMG fusion models to classify task weight, as well as motion intention. A variety of fusion methods were investigated, such as a Weighted Average decision-level fusion (83.01 ± 6.04% accuracy) and Convolutional Neural Network-based input-level fusion (81.57 ± 7.11% accuracy), demonstrating that EEGâEMG fusion can classify more indirect tasks.
A novel control system, referred to as a Task Weight Selective Controller (TWSC), was implemented using a Gain Scheduling-based approach, dictated by external load estimations from an EEGâEMG fusion classifier. To improve system stability, classifier prediction debouncing was also proposed to reduce misclassifications through filtering. Performance of the TWSC was evaluated using a developed upper-limb brace simulator. Due to simulator limitations, no significant difference in error was observed between the TWSC and PID control. However, results did demonstrate the feasibility of prediction debouncing, showing it provided smoother device motion. Continued development of the TWSC, and EEGâEMG fusion techniques will ultimately result in wearable devices that are able to adapt to changing loads more effectively, serving to improve the user experience during operation
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