Semi-hidden markov models for visible light communication channels

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering, Johannesburg 2018Visible Light Communication (VLC) is an emerging field in optical wireless communication that uses light emitting diodes (LEDs) for data transmission. LEDs are being widely adopted both indoors and outdoors due to their low cost, long lifespan and high efficiency. Furthermore, LEDs can be modulated to provide both illumination and wireless communication. There is also potential for VLC to be incorporated into future smart lighting systems. One of the current challenges in VLC is being able to deal with noise and interference; including interference from other dimmed, Pulse-Width Modulated (PWM) LEDs. Other noise includes natural light from the sun and artificial light from other non-modulating light sources. Modelling these types of channels is one of the first steps in understanding the channel and eventually designing techniques for mitigating the effects of noise and interference. This dissertation presents a semi-hidden Markov model, known as the Fritchman model, that discretely models the effects of as well as errors introduced from noise and interference in on-off keying modulated VLC channels. Models have been developed for both the indoor and outdoor environments and can be used for VLC simulations and designing error mitigation techniques. Results show that certain channels are able to be better modelled than others. Experimental error distributions shows insights into the impact that PWM interference has on VLC channels. This can be used for assisting in the development of error control codes and interference avoidance techniques in standalone VLC systems, as well as systems where VLC and smart lighting coexist. The models developed can also be used for simulations of VLC channels under different channel conditionsXL201

A Generative Method for Indoor Localization Using Wi-Fi Fingerprinting

Indoor localization is an enabling technology for pervasive and mobile computing applications. Although different technologies have been proposed for indoor localization, Wi-Fi fingerprinting is one of the most used techniques due to the pervasiveness of Wi-Fi technology. Most Wi-Fi fingerprinting localization methods presented in the literature are discriminative methods. We present a generative method for indoor localization based on Wi-Fi fingerprinting. The Received Signal Strength Indicator received from a Wireless Access Point is modeled by a hidden Markov model. Unlike other algorithms, the use of a hidden Markov model allows ours to take advantage of the temporal autocorrelation present in the Wi-Fi signal. The algorithm estimates the user’s location based on the hidden Markov model, which models the signal and the forward algorithm to determine the likelihood of a given time series of Received Signal Strength Indicators. The proposed method was compared with four other well-known Machine Learning algorithms through extensive experimentation with data collected in real scenarios. The proposed method obtained competitive results in most scenarios tested and was the best method in 17 of 60 experiments performed

지자기 지문을 이용한 비용 효율적이고 실용적인 실내 측위 시스템

학위논문(박사)--서울대학교 대학원 :공과대학 전기·컴퓨터공학부,2020. 2. 권태경.지난 십수 년 동안 학계와 산업 영역을 막론하여 실내 측위 시스템이 널리 연구되어 왔다. 실내 측위 시스템을 설계할 때 WiFi, Bluetooth, 관성 센서와 같은 다양한 종류의 센서나 무선 인터페이스들을 활용할 수 있는데, 그 중에서도 지자기 센서에서 측정한 자기장의 패턴을 측위에 사용하는 시스템은 정확성과 안정성 측면에서 타 시스템에 비해 큰 장점을 지니고 있다. 철골 구조에 기반하여 건축된 현대 건축물들의 실내 공간에는 지자기장의 왜곡이 발생하며 이는 곧 실내의 개별 공간들에 고유하고 안정적인 지자기 패턴을 발생시킨다. 이를 실내 측위의 맥락에서는 지자기 지문이라고 정의하는데 이 지자기 지문은 사용자의 움직임, 문과 창문의 여닫힘 등과 같은 일상적인 환경 변화에 강건하며, 특히 WiFi 등 무선 신호와 비교하였을 때 높은 수준의 안정성을 보인다. 그러나 이와 같은 안정성에도 불구하고 지자기 지문을 이용하여 실내 측위 시스템을 설계할 때에는 몇가지 고려해야할 사항들이 있다. 먼저 지자기 지문은 센서 데이터의 낮은 차원 개수로 인하여 AP 개수에 따라 데이터의 차원이 수십, 수백개에 달하는 무선 신호에 비하여 구별성이 매우 낮다. 대부분의 기존 연구들은 많은 양의 연산을 수행하는 복잡한 알고리즘과 많은 센서를 이용하여 이를 극복하였다. 또 대상 공간의 지자기 지문을 수집하기 위한 사전 조사 비용과 주기적인 지자기 지문 재수집에 드는 관리 비용 역시 지자기 지문을 사용할 때 고려해야할 문제점이다. 따라서 본 논문은 이 두 가지 문제점을 해결하는 데에 초점을 맞추어 작성되었다. 먼저 사물 인터넷 (IoT, Internet of Things) 환경에서 실내 측위를 위해 지자기 지문을 활용하는 에너지 효율적인 경량 시스템을 연구하였다. BLE 인터페이스와 센서 2개(지자기 및 가속도계)만 탑재한 새로운 하드웨어 설계 방식을 제안하였으며, 이 기기는 코인 크기의 배터리를 사용할 경우 1년 동안 동작 가능하였다. 또한 최소한의 센서 데이터만을 이용하여 강건한 사용자 보행 모델과 효율적인 알고리즘을 도입한 파티클 필터 프레임워크를 제안하였다. 직접 설계한 사물인터넷 기기와 알고리즘을 적용한 결과, 본 시스템은 낮은 계산 복잡성과 높은 에너지 효율을 보여주면서 일반적인 사무실 공간에 대하여 평균 1.62m의 측위 정확도를 달성하였다. 다음으로는 크라우드소싱 방식을 활용하는 지자기 지문 기반의 실내 측위 시스템을 제안하였다. 실내 측위의 맥락에서 크라우드소싱은 명시적인 대상 공간의 사전 조사 과정 없이 지자기 지문 데이터베이스를 구성하는 방법이다. 지난 십수년 간 실내 측위 연구를 위해 크라우드소싱 방법론이 활발하게 연구되어 왔으나, 크라우드소싱에 기반한 기존 측위 시스템은 일반적으로 사전 조사 기반 시스템보다 위치 정확도가 낮게 측정되어왔다. 크라우드소싱 기반 시스텝의 낮은 측위 성능을 극복하기 위해, 본 연구에서는 지자기 기반 크라우드소싱 데이터를 사용한 실내 측위 시스템을 제안한다. 명시적인 수집 과정 없이 스마트폰 사용자가 일상생활에서 자연스럽게 지자기 지문 데이터베이스를 구축할 수 있도록 HMM 기반의 새로운 학습 모델을 구현하였으며, 주로 복도 위주로 구성된 실내 공간에서의 평가 결과, 제안된 시스템이 96.47\%의 학습 정확도와 0.25m의 중간값 측위 정확도를 달성하였다.Over the decades, indoor localization system has been widely studied in the academic and also in the industrial area. Many sensors or wireless signals such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and inertial sensors are available when designing an indoor localization system, but among them, the systems using the geomagnetic field has advantages concerning accuracy and stability. Every spatial point in an indoor space has its own distinct and stable fingerprint, which arises owing to the distortion of the magnetic field induced by the surrounding steel and iron structures. The magnetic fingerprint is robust to environmental changes like pedestrian activities and door/window movements, particularly compared with radio signals such as WiFi. This phenomenon makes many indoor positioning techniques rely on the magnetic field as an essential source of localization. Despite the robustness, there are some challenges when leveraging the magnetic fingerprint to design the indoor localization system. Due to lower discernibility of the magnetic fingerprint, most of the existing studies have exploited high computational algorithms and many sensors. Also, the cost of a site survey to collect the fingerprints and periodic management of target spaces is still problematic when using magnetic fingerprints. This dissertation thus focuses on these two challenges. First, we present an energy-efficient and lightweight system that utilizes the magnetic field for indoor positioning in the Internet of Things (IoT) environments. We propose a new hardware design of an IoT device that only has a BLE interface and two sensors (magnetometer and accelerometer), with the lifetime of one year when using a coin-size battery. We further propose an augmented particle filter framework that features a robust motion model and algorithmic-efficient localization heuristics with minimal sensory data. The prototype-based evaluation shows that the proposed system achieves a median accuracy of 1.62 m for an office building while exhibiting low computational complexity and high energy efficiency. Next, we propose a magnetic fingerprint-based indoor localization system leveraging a crowdsourcing approach. In the aspect of indoor localization, crowdsourcing is a method to construct the fingerprint database without the explicit site-survey process. Over the past decade, crowdsourcing has been actively studied for indoor localization. However, the existing localization systems based on crowdsourcing usually achieve lower location accuracy than the site survey based systems. To overcome the low performance of the crowdsourcing based approaches, we design an indoor positioning system using the crowdsourced data of the magnetic field. We substantiate a novel HMM-based learning model to construct a database of magnetic field fingerprints from smartphone users. Experiments in an indoor space consisting of aisles show that the proposed system achieves the learning accuracy of 96.47\% and median positioning accuracy of 0.25m.Chapter 1 Introduction 1p - Motivation 1p - Indoor Localization Overview 2p - Magnetic Field based Systems 5p - Organization of Dissertation 7p Chapter 2 An Energy-efficient and Lightweight Indoor Localization System for Internet-of-Things (IoT) Environments 8p - Introduction 8p - Related Work 11p - Issues on Using Magnetic Field 12p - Characteristics of Magnetic Field 12p - Variation Issues 13p - Sensing Rate 17p - Design of Energy-efficient Device for Localization 18p - Hardware Design 18p - Structure of the BLE Beacon Frame 21p - Processing Sensor Data 22p - System Architecture 25p - Overview 25p - Site Survey Methodology 25p - Particle Filter Framework 26p - Evaluation 36p - Implementation 37p - Experiment Setup 38p - Localization Performance 38p - Energy and Algorithmic Efficiency 44p - Discussion 46p Chapter 3 Magnetic Field based Indoor Localization System:A Crowdsourcing Approach 51p - Introduction 51p - Characteristics of Magnetic Field 54p - Robustness 54p - Distinctness 54p - Diversity issues 55p - Design of HMM for Crowdsoucing 56p - Basic Model 56p - Issues in HMM Learning 59p - Preliminary Experiments 59p - System Architecture 63p - Enhanced Learning Model 63p - Pre-processing Crowdsourced Data 65p - Allocating Initial HMM Parameters 67p - Comparing Similarity between the Magnetic Fingerprints 70p - Evaluation 71p - Experimental Settings 71p - Learning Accuracy 71p - Positioning Accuracy 73p - Algorithmic Efficiency 75p Chapter 4 Discussion and Future Work 76p - Open Space Issue 76p Chapter 5 Conclusion 82p Bibliography 84p 초록 92pDocto

Estimation of Spatial Fields of Nlos/Los Conditions for Improved Localization in Indoor Environments

A major challenge in indoor localization is the presence or absence of line-of-sight (LOS). The absence of LOS, denoted as non-line-of-sight (NLOS), directly affects the accuracy of any localization algorithm because of the induced bias in ranging. The estimation of the spatial distribution of NLOS-induced ranging bias in indoor environments remains a major challenge. In this paper, we propose a novel crowd-based Bayesian learning approach to the estimation of bias fields caused by LOS/NLOS conditions. The proposed method is based on the concept of Gaussian processes and exploits numerous measurements. The performance of the method is demonstrated with extensive experiments

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis work seeks to improve upon existing methods for device-free localization (DFL) using radio frequency (RF) sensor networks. Device-free localization is the process of determining the location of a target object, typically a person, without the need for a device to be with the object to aid in localization. An RF sensor network measures changes to radio propagation caused by the presence of a person to locate that person. We show how existing methods which use either wideband or narrowband RF channels can be improved in ways including localization accuracy, energy efficiency, and system cost. We also show how wideband and narrowband systems can combine their information to improve localization. A common assumption in ultra-wideband research is that to estimate the bistatic delay or range, "background subtraction" is effective at removing clutter and must first be performed. Another assumption commonly made is that after background subtraction, each individual multipath component caused by a person's presence can be distinguished perfectly. We show that these assumptions are often not true and that ranging can still be performed even when these assumptions are not true. We propose modeling the difference between a current set of channel impulse responses (CIR) and a set of calibration CIRs as a hidden Markov model (HMM) and show the effectiveness of this model over background subtraction. The methods for performing device-free localization by using ultra-wideband (UWB) measurements and by using received signal strength (RSS) measurements are often considered separate topic of research and viewed only in isolation by two different communities of researchers. We consider both of these methods together and propose methods for combining the information obtained from UWB and RSS measurements. We show that using both methods in conjunction is more effective than either method on its own, especially in a setting where radio placement is constrained. It has been shown that for RSS-based DFL, measuring on multiple channels improves localization accuracy. We consider the trade-o s of measuring all radio links on all channels and the energy and latency expense of making the additional measurements required when sampling multiple channels. We also show the benefits of allowing multiple radios to transmit simultaneously, or in parallel, to better measure the available radio links

Smart Passive Localization Using Time Difference of Arrival

A smart passive localization system using time difference of arrival (TDoA) measurements is designed and analyzed with the goal of providing the position information for the construction of frequency allocation maps

사물인터넷을 위한 무선 실내 측위 알고리즘

학위논문(박사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 공과대학 전기·정보공학부, 2022.2. 김성철.실내 위치 기반 서비스는 스마트폰을 이용한 실내에서의 경로안내, 스마트 공장에서의 자원 관리, 실내 로봇의 자율주행 등 많은 분야에 접목될 수 있으며, 사물인터넷 응용에도 필수적인 기술이다. 다양한 위치 기반 서비스를 구현하기 위해서는 정확한 위치 정보가 필요하며, 적합한 거리 및 위치를 추정 기술이 핵심적이다. 야외에서는 위성항법시스템을 이용해서 위치 정보를 획득할 수 있다. 본 학위논문에서는 와이파이 기반 측위 기술에 대해 다룬다. 구체적으로, 전파의 신호 세기 및 도달 시간을 이용한 정밀한 실내 위치 추정을 위한 세 가지 기술에 대해 다룬다. 먼저, 비가시경로 환경에서의 거리 추정 정확도를 향상시켜 거리 기반 측위의 정확도를 향상시키는 하이브리드 알고리즘을 제안한다. 제안하 알고리즘은듀얼 밴드 대역의 신호세기를 감쇄량을 측정하여 거리 기반 측위 기법을 적용할 때, 거리 추정부 단계만을 데이터 기반 학습을 이용한 깊은 신경망 회귀 모델로 대체한 방안이다. 적절히 학습된 깊은 회귀 모델의 사용으로 비가시경로 환경에서 발생하는 거리 추정 오차를 효과적으로 감소시킬 수 있으며, 결과적으로 위치 추정 오차 또한 감소시켰다. 제안한 방법을 실내 광선추적 기반 모의실험으로 평가했을 때, 기존 기법들에 비해서 위치 추정 오차를 중간값을 기준으로 22.3% 이상 줄일 수 있음을 검증했다. 추가적으로, 제안한 방법은 실내에서의 AP 위치변화 등에 강인함을 확인했다. 다음으로, 본 논문에서는 비가시경로에서 단일 대역 수신신호세기를 측정했을 때 비가시경로가 많은 실내 환경에서 위치 추정 정확도를 높이기 위한 방안을 제안한다. 단일 대역 수신신호세기를 이용하는 방안은 기존에 이용되는 와이파이, 블루투스, 직비 등의 기반시설에 쉽게 적용될 수 있기 때문에 널리 이용된다. 하지만 신호 세기의 단일 경로손실 모델을 이용한 거리 추정은 상당한 오차를 지녀서 위치 추정 정확도를 감소시킨다. 이러한 문제의 원인은 단일 경로손실 모델로는 실내에서의 복잡한 전파 채널 특성을 반영하기 어렵기 때문이다. 본 연구에서는 실내 위치 추정을 위한 목적으로, 중첩된 다중 상태 경로 감쇄 모델을 새롭게 제시한다. 제안한 모델은 가시경로 및 비가시경로에서의 채널 특성을 고려하여 잠재적인 후보 상태들을 지닌다. 한 순간의 수신 신호 세기 측정치에 대해 각 기준 기지국별로 최적의 경로손실 모델 상태를 결정하는 효율적인 방안을 제시한다. 이를 위해 기지국별 경로손실모델 상태의 조합에 따른 측위 결과를 평가할 지표로서 비용함수를 정의하였다. 각 기지국별 최적의 채널 모델을 찾는데 필요한 계산 복잡도는 기지국 수의 증가에 따라 기하급수적으로 증가하는데, 유전 알고리즘을 이용한 탐색을 적용하여 계산량을 억제하였다. 실내 광선추적 모의실험을 통한 검증과 실측 결과를 이용한 검증을 진행하였으며, 제안한 방안은 실제 실내 환경에서 기존의 기법들에 비해 위치 추정 오차를 약 31% 감소시켰으며 평균적으로 1.92 m 수준의 정확도를 달성함을 확인했다. 마지막으로 FTM 프로토콜을 이용한 실내 위치 추적 알고리즘에 대해 연구하였다. 스마트폰의 내장 관성 센서와 와이파이 통신에서 제공하는 FTM 프로토콜을 통한 거리 추정을 이용하여 실내에서 사용자의 위치를 추적할 수 있다. 하지만 실내의 복잡한 다중경로 환경으로 인한 피크 검출 실패는 거리 측정치에 편향성을 유발한다. 또한 사용하는 디바이스의 종류에 따라 예상치 못한 거리 오차가 발생할 수있다. 본 논문에서는 실제 환경에서 FTM 거리 추정을 이용할 때 발생할 수 있는 오차들을 고려하고 이를 보상하는 방안에 대해 제시한다. 확장 칼만 필터와 결합하여 FTM 결과를 사전필터링 하여 이상값을 제거하고, 거리 측정치의 편향성을 제거하여 위치 추적 정확도를 향상시킨다. 실내에서의 실험 결과 제안한 알고리즘은 거치 측정치의 편향성을 약 44-65% 감소시켰으며 최종적으로 사용자의 위치를 서브미터급으로 추적할 수 있음을 검증했다.Indoor location-based services (LBS) can be combined with various applications such as indoor navigation for smartphone users, resource management in smart factories, and autonomous driving of robots. It is also indispensable for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. For various LBS, accurate location information is essential. Therefore, a proper ranging and positioning algorithm is important. For outdoors, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is available to provide position information. However, the GNSS is inappropriate indoors owing to the issue of the blocking of the signals from satellites. It is necessary to develop a technology that can replace GNSS in GNSS-denied environments. Among the various alternative systems, the one of promising technology is to use a Wi-Fi system that has already been applied to many commercial devices, and the infrastructure is in place in many regions. In this dissertation, Wi-Fi based indoor localization methods are presented. In the specific, I propose the three major issues related to accurate indoor localization using received signal strength (RSS) and fine timing measurement (FTM) protocol in the 802.11 standard for my dissertation topics. First, I propose a hybrid localization algorithm to boost the accuracy of range-based localization by improving the ranging accuracy under indoor non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions. I replaced the ranging part of the rule-based localization method with a deep regression model that uses data-driven learning with dual-band received signal strength (RSS). The ranging error caused by the NLOS conditions was effectively reduced by using the deep regression method. As a consequence, the positioning error could be reduced under NLOS conditions. The performance of the proposed method was verified through a ray-tracing-based simulation for indoor spaces. The proposed scheme showed a reduction in the positioning error of at least 22.3% in terms of the median root mean square error. Next, I study on positioning algorithm that considering NLOS conditions for each APs, using single band RSS measurement. The single band RSS information is widely used for indoor localization because they can be easily implemented by using existing infrastructure like Wi-Fi, Blutooth, or Zigbee. However, range estimation with a single pathloss model produces considerable errors, which degrade the positioning performance. This problem mainly arises because the single pathloss model cannot reflect diverse indoor radio wave propagation characteristics. In this study, I develop a new overlapping multi-state model to consider multiple candidates of pathloss models including line-of-sight (LOS) and NLOS states, and propose an efficient way to select a proper model for each reference node involved in the localization process. To this end, I formulate a cost function whose value varies widely depending on the choice of pathloss model of each access point. Because the computational complexity to find an optimal channel model for each reference node exponentially increases with the number of reference nodes, I apply a genetic algorithm to significantly reduce the complexity so that the proposed method can be executed in real-time. Experimental validations with ray-tracing simulations and RSS measurements at a real site confirm the improvement of localization accuracy for Wi-Fi in indoor environments. The proposed method achieves up to 1.92~m mean positioning error under a practical indoor environment and produces a performance improvement of 31.09\% over the benchmark scenario. Finally, I investigate accurate indoor tracking algorithm using FTM protocol in this dissertation. By using the FTM ranging and the built-in sensors in a smartphone, it is possible to track the user's location in indoor. However, the failure of first peak detection due to the multipath effect causes a bias in the FTM ranging results in the practical indoor environment. Additionally, the unexpected ranging error dependent on device type also degrades the indoor positioning accuracy. In this study, I considered the factors of ranging error in the FTM protocol in practical indoor environment, and proposed a method to compensate ranging error. I designed an EKF-based tracking algorithm that adaptively removes outliers from the FTM result and corrects bias to increase positioning accuracy. The experimental results verified that the proposed algorithm reduces the average ofthe ranging bias by 43-65\% in an indoor scenarios, and can achieve the sub-meter accuracy in average route mean squared error of user's position in the experiment scenarios.Abstract i Contents iv List of Tables vi List of Figures vii 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 Hybrid Approach for Indoor Localization Using Received Signal Strength of Dual-BandWi-Fi 6 2.1 Motivation 6 2.2 Preliminary 8 2.3 System model 11 2.4 Proposed Ranging Method 13 2.5 Performance Evaluation 16 2.5.1 Ray-Tracing-Based Simulation 16 2.5.2 Analysis of the Ranging Accuracy 21 2.5.3 Analysis of the Neural Network Structure 25 2.5.4 Analysis of Positioning Accuracy 26 2.6 Summary 29 3 Genetic Algorithm for Path Loss Model Selection in Signal Strength Based Indoor Localization 31 3.1 Motivation 31 3.2 Preliminary 34 3.2.1 RSS-based Ranging Techniques 35 3.2.2 Positioning Technique 37 3.3 Proposed localization method 38 3.3.1 Localization Algorithm with Overlapped Multi-State Path Loss Model 38 3.3.2 Localization with Genetic Algorithm-Based Search 41 3.4 Performance evaluation 46 3.4.1 Numerical simulation 50 3.4.2 Experimental results 56 3.5 Summary 60 4 Indoor User Tracking with Self-calibrating Range Bias Using FTM Protocol 62 4.1 Motivation 62 4.2 Preliminary 63 4.2.1 FTM ranging 63 4.2.2 PDR-based trajectory estimation 65 4.3 EKF design for adaptive compensation of ranging bias 66 4.4 Performance evaluation 69 4.4.1 Experimental scenario 69 4.4.2 Experimental results 70 4.5 Summary 75 5 Conclusion 76 Abstract (In Korean) 89박

Noise modeling for standard CENELEC A-band power line communication channel

Power line communications (PLC) usage of low-voltage electrical power supply network as a medium of communication provides an alternative for the telecommunication access and in-house communication. Historically, power lines were majorly used for controlling appliances, however, with recent technology advancements power lines are now able to compete favorably and successfully with other relatively stable home automation and networking technologies like fixed line and wireless. Regardless of the advantages PLC has to offer, like every other communication technology, it has its own technical challenges it must overcome to be fully deployed and maximize its full potential. Such challenges includes noise, which can originate from appliances connected across the network or can be coupled unto the network. Harmful interference to other wireless spectrum users such as broadcast stations, and signal attenuation are other challenges faced by usage of the power line as a communication medium. PLC suffers the risk of not living up to its full development as a reliable means of communication if proper understanding of the channel potential and characteristic is not known. Therefore, understanding of the channel potential and characteristics can be obtained through measurement and modeling of the PLC channel. This model and measurements of the channel characteristics can then be utilized in designing a good PLC system which is able to withstand and mitigate the effect of the different kind of noise and disturbance present on the PLC network. This research therefore aims at formulizing and modeling the error pattern/behavior of noise and disturbances of an in-house CENELEC A-band based on experimental measurements. This is achieved by carrying out a real time experimental measurement of noise over a complete day to show the noise behavior. Error sequences are then generated from the measurement for the different classes of noise present on the CENELEC A-band and the use of Fritchman model, a Markovian chain model, is then employed to model the CENELEC A-band channel. This involves the use of Baum-Welch algorithm (an iterative algorithm) to estimate the model parameters of the three-state Markovian Fritchman model assumed. This precise channel model can then be used to design a good PLC system and facilitate the design of efficient coding and/or modulation schemes to enhance reliable communication on the PLC network. Therefore, answering the question of “how to formulize and model the error pattern/behavior of noise and disturbances of an in-house CENELEC A-band based on experimental measurements”

Robot introspection through learned hidden Markov models

In this paper we describe a machine learning approach for acquiring a model of a robot behaviour from raw sensor data. We are interested in automating the acquisition of behavioural models to provide a robot with an introspective capability. We assume that the behaviour of a robot in achieving a task can be modelled as a finite stochastic state transition system. Beginning with data recorded by a robot in the execution of a task, we use unsupervised learning techniques to estimate a hidden Markov model (HMM) that can be used both for predicting and explaining the behaviour of the robot in subsequent executions of the task. We demonstrate that it is feasible to automate the entire process of learning a high quality HMM from the data recorded by the robot during execution of its task.The learned HMM can be used both for monitoring and controlling the behaviour of the robot. The ultimate purpose of our work is to learn models for the full set of tasks associated with a given problem domain, and to integrate these models with a generative task planner. We want to show that these models can be used successfully in controlling the execution of a plan. However, this paper does not develop the planning and control aspects of our work, focussing instead on the learning methodology and the evaluation of a learned model. The essential property of the models we seek to construct is that the most probable trajectory through a model, given the observations made by the robot, accurately diagnoses, or explains, the behaviour that the robot actually performed when making these observations. In the work reported here we consider a navigation task. We explain the learning process, the experimental setup and the structure of the resulting learned behavioural models. We then evaluate the extent to which explanations proposed by the learned models accord with a human observer's interpretation of the behaviour exhibited by the robot in its execution of the task