8,566 research outputs found
Relating Objective and Subjective Performance Measures for AAM-based Visual Speech Synthesizers
We compare two approaches for synthesizing visual speech using Active Appearance Models (AAMs): one that utilizes acoustic features as input, and one that utilizes a phonetic transcription as input. Both synthesizers are trained using the same data and the performance is measured using both objective and subjective testing. We investigate the impact of likely sources of error in the synthesized visual speech by introducing typical errors into real visual speech sequences and subjectively measuring the perceived degradation. When only a small region (e.g. a single syllable) of ground-truth visual speech is incorrect we find that the subjective score for the entire sequence is subjectively lower than sequences generated by our synthesizers. This observation motivates further consideration of an often ignored issue, which is to what extent are subjective measures correlated with objective measures of performance? Significantly, we find that the most commonly used objective measures of performance are not necessarily the best indicator of viewer perception of quality. We empirically evaluate alternatives and show that the cost of a dynamic time warp of synthesized visual speech parameters to the respective ground-truth parameters is a better indicator of subjective quality
Numerical Relativity Injection Infrastructure
This document describes the new Numerical Relativity (NR) injection
infrastructure in the LIGO Algorithms Library (LAL), which henceforth allows
for the usage of NR waveforms as a discrete waveform approximant in LAL. With
this new interface, NR waveforms provided in the described format can directly
be used as simulated GW signals ("injections") for data analyses, which include
parameter estimation, searches, hardware injections etc. As opposed to the
previous infrastructure, this new interface natively handles sub-dominant modes
and waveforms from numerical simulations of precessing binary black holes,
making them directly accessible to LIGO analyses. To correctly handle
precessing simulations, the new NR injection infrastructure internally
transforms the NR data into the coordinate frame convention used in LAL.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, technical repor
Keep Rollin' - Whole-Body Motion Control and Planning for Wheeled Quadrupedal Robots
We show dynamic locomotion strategies for wheeled quadrupedal robots, which
combine the advantages of both walking and driving. The developed optimization
framework tightly integrates the additional degrees of freedom introduced by
the wheels. Our approach relies on a zero-moment point based motion
optimization which continuously updates reference trajectories. The reference
motions are tracked by a hierarchical whole-body controller which computes
optimal generalized accelerations and contact forces by solving a sequence of
prioritized tasks including the nonholonomic rolling constraints. Our approach
has been tested on ANYmal, a quadrupedal robot that is fully torque-controlled
including the non-steerable wheels attached to its legs. We conducted
experiments on flat and inclined terrains as well as over steps, whereby we
show that integrating the wheels into the motion control and planning framework
results in intuitive motion trajectories, which enable more robust and dynamic
locomotion compared to other wheeled-legged robots. Moreover, with a speed of 4
m/s and a reduction of the cost of transport by 83 % we prove the superiority
of wheeled-legged robots compared to their legged counterparts.Comment: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter
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
A unified wavelet-based modelling framework for non-linear system identification: the WANARX model structure
A new unified modelling framework based on the superposition of additive submodels, functional components, and
wavelet decompositions is proposed for non-linear system identification. A non-linear model, which is often represented
using a multivariate non-linear function, is initially decomposed into a number of functional components via the wellknown
analysis of variance (ANOVA) expression, which can be viewed as a special form of the NARX (non-linear
autoregressive with exogenous inputs) model for representing dynamic input–output systems. By expanding each functional
component using wavelet decompositions including the regular lattice frame decomposition, wavelet series and
multiresolution wavelet decompositions, the multivariate non-linear model can then be converted into a linear-in-theparameters
problem, which can be solved using least-squares type methods. An efficient model structure determination
approach based upon a forward orthogonal least squares (OLS) algorithm, which involves a stepwise orthogonalization
of the regressors and a forward selection of the relevant model terms based on the error reduction ratio (ERR), is
employed to solve the linear-in-the-parameters problem in the present study. The new modelling structure is referred to
as a wavelet-based ANOVA decomposition of the NARX model or simply WANARX model, and can be applied to
represent high-order and high dimensional non-linear systems
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