Linearly-Recurrent Autoencoder Networks for Learning Dynamics

This paper describes a method for learning low-dimensional approximations of nonlinear dynamical systems, based on neural-network approximations of the underlying Koopman operator. Extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition (EDMD) provides a useful data-driven approximation of the Koopman operator for analyzing dynamical systems. This paper addresses a fundamental problem associated with EDMD: a trade-off between representational capacity of the dictionary and over-fitting due to insufficient data. A new neural network architecture combining an autoencoder with linear recurrent dynamics in the encoded state is used to learn a low-dimensional and highly informative Koopman-invariant subspace of observables. A method is also presented for balanced model reduction of over-specified EDMD systems in feature space. Nonlinear reconstruction using partially linear multi-kernel regression aims to improve reconstruction accuracy from the low-dimensional state when the data has complex but intrinsically low-dimensional structure. The techniques demonstrate the ability to identify Koopman eigenfunctions of the unforced Duffing equation, create accurate low-dimensional models of an unstable cylinder wake flow, and make short-time predictions of the chaotic Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figure

Semi-Supervised Learning with Ladder Networks

We combine supervised learning with unsupervised learning in deep neural networks. The proposed model is trained to simultaneously minimize the sum of supervised and unsupervised cost functions by backpropagation, avoiding the need for layer-wise pre-training. Our work builds on the Ladder network proposed by Valpola (2015), which we extend by combining the model with supervision. We show that the resulting model reaches state-of-the-art performance in semi-supervised MNIST and CIFAR-10 classification, in addition to permutation-invariant MNIST classification with all labels.Comment: Revised denoising function, updated results, fixed typo

Statistical inference for dynamical systems: a review

The topic of statistical inference for dynamical systems has been studied extensively across several fields. In this survey we focus on the problem of parameter estimation for non-linear dynamical systems. Our objective is to place results across distinct disciplines in a common setting and highlight opportunities for further research.Comment: Some minor typos correcte

Computing Reduced Order Models via Inner-Outer Krylov Recycling in Diffuse Optical Tomography

In nonlinear imaging problems whose forward model is described by a partial differential equation (PDE), the main computational bottleneck in solving the inverse problem is the need to solve many large-scale discretized PDEs at each step of the optimization process. In the context of absorption imaging in diffuse optical tomography, one approach to addressing this bottleneck proposed recently (de Sturler, et al, 2015) reformulates the viewing of the forward problem as a differential algebraic system, and then employs model order reduction (MOR). However, the construction of the reduced model requires the solution of several full order problems (i.e. the full discretized PDE for multiple right-hand sides) to generate a candidate global basis. This step is then followed by a rank-revealing factorization of the matrix containing the candidate basis in order to compress the basis to a size suitable for constructing the reduced transfer function. The present paper addresses the costs associated with the global basis approximation in two ways. First, we use the structure of the matrix to rewrite the full order transfer function, and corresponding derivatives, such that the full order systems to be solved are symmetric (positive definite in the zero frequency case). Then we apply MOR to the new formulation of the problem. Second, we give an approach to computing the global basis approximation dynamically as the full order systems are solved. In this phase, only the incrementally new, relevant information is added to the existing global basis, and redundant information is not computed. This new approach is achieved by an inner-outer Krylov recycling approach which has potential use in other applications as well. We show the value of the new approach to approximate global basis computation on two DOT absorption image reconstruction problems

Reachable Space Characterization of Markov Decision Processes with Time Variability

We propose a solution to a time-varying variant of Markov Decision Processes which can be used to address decision-theoretic planning problems for autonomous systems operating in unstructured outdoor environments. We explore the time variability property of the planning stochasticity and investigate the state reachability, based on which we then develop an efficient iterative method that offers a good trade-off between solution optimality and time complexity. The reachability space is constructed by analyzing the means and variances of states' reaching time in the future. We validate our algorithm through extensive simulations using ocean data, and the results show that our method achieves a great performance in terms of both solution quality and computing time.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, accepted by RSS 201

Technical Report: Observability of a Linear System under Sparsity Constraints

Consider an n-dimensional linear system where it is known that there are at most k<n non-zero components in the initial state. The observability problem, that is the recovery of the initial state, for such a system is considered. We obtain sufficient conditions on the number of the available observations to be able to recover the initial state exactly for such a system. Both deterministic and stochastic setups are considered for system dynamics. In the former setting, the system matrices are known deterministically, whereas in the latter setting, all of the matrices are picked from a randomized class of matrices. The main message is that, one does not need to obtain full n observations to be able to uniquely identify the initial state of the linear system, even when the observations are picked randomly, when the initial condition is known to be sparse

On Optimal Zero-Delay Coding of Vector Markov Sources

Optimal zero-delay coding (quantization) of a vector-valued Markov source driven by a noise process is considered. Using a stochastic control problem formulation, the existence and structure of optimal quantization policies are studied. For a finite-horizon problem with bounded per-stage distortion measure, the existence of an optimal zero-delay quantization policy is shown provided that the quantizers allowed are ones with convex codecells. The bounded distortion assumption is relaxed to cover cases that include the linear quadratic Gaussian problem. For the infinite horizon problem and a stationary Markov source the optimality of deterministic Markov coding policies is shown. The existence of optimal stationary Markov quantization policies is also shown provided randomization that is shared by the encoder and the decoder is allowed.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, accepted for publicatio

Time-Delay Observables for Koopman: Theory and Applications

Nonlinear dynamical systems are ubiquitous in science and engineering, yet analysis and prediction of these systems remains a challenge. Koopman operator theory circumvents some of these issues by considering the dynamics in the space of observable functions on the state, in which the dynamics are intrinsically linear and thus amenable to standard techniques from numerical analysis and linear algebra. However, practical issues remain with this approach, as the space of observables is infinite-dimensional and selecting a subspace of functions in which to accurately represent the system is a nontrivial task. In this work we consider time-delay observables to represent nonlinear dynamics in the Koopman operator framework. We prove the surprising result that Koopman operators for different systems admit universal (system-independent) representations in these coordinates, and give analytic expressions for these representations. In addition, we show that for certain systems a restricted class of these observables form an optimal finite-dimensional basis for representing the Koopman operator, and that the analytic representation of the Koopman operator in these coordinates coincides with results computed by the dynamic mode decomposition. We provide numerical examples to complement our results. In addition to being theoretically interesting, these results have implications for a number of linearization algorithms for dynamical systems.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figure

Deconstructing the Ladder Network Architecture

The Manual labeling of data is and will remain a costly endeavor. For this reason, semi-supervised learning remains a topic of practical importance. The recently proposed Ladder Network is one such approach that has proven to be very successful. In addition to the supervised objective, the Ladder Network also adds an unsupervised objective corresponding to the reconstruction costs of a stack of denoising autoencoders. Although the empirical results are impressive, the Ladder Network has many components intertwined, whose contributions are not obvious in such a complex architecture. In order to help elucidate and disentangle the different ingredients in the Ladder Network recipe, this paper presents an extensive experimental investigation of variants of the Ladder Network in which we replace or remove individual components to gain more insight into their relative importance. We find that all of the components are necessary for achieving optimal performance, but they do not contribute equally. For semi-supervised tasks, we conclude that the most important contribution is made by the lateral connection, followed by the application of noise, and finally the choice of what we refer to as the `combinator function' in the decoder path. We also find that as the number of labeled training examples increases, the lateral connections and reconstruction criterion become less important, with most of the improvement in generalization being due to the injection of noise in each layer. Furthermore, we present a new type of combinator function that outperforms the original design in both fully- and semi-supervised tasks, reducing record test error rates on Permutation-Invariant MNIST to 0.57% for the supervised setting, and to 0.97% and 1.0% for semi-supervised settings with 1000 and 100 labeled examples respectively.Comment: Proceedings of the 33 rd International Conference on Machine Learning, New York, NY, USA, 201

Self-taught learning of a deep invariant representation for visual tracking via temporal slowness principle

Visual representation is crucial for a visual tracking method's performances. Conventionally, visual representations adopted in visual tracking rely on hand-crafted computer vision descriptors. These descriptors were developed generically without considering tracking-specific information. In this paper, we propose to learn complex-valued invariant representations from tracked sequential image patches, via strong temporal slowness constraint and stacked convolutional autoencoders. The deep slow local representations are learned offline on unlabeled data and transferred to the observational model of our proposed tracker. The proposed observational model retains old training samples to alleviate drift, and collect negative samples which are coherent with target's motion pattern for better discriminative tracking. With the learned representation and online training samples, a logistic regression classifier is adopted to distinguish target from background, and retrained online to adapt to appearance changes. Subsequently, the observational model is integrated into a particle filter framework to peform visual tracking. Experimental results on various challenging benchmark sequences demonstrate that the proposed tracker performs favourably against several state-of-the-art trackers.Comment: Pattern Recognition (Elsevier), 201