6,957 research outputs found
Neural Sensor Fusion for Spatial Visualization on a Mobile Robot
An ARTMAP neural network is used to integrate visual information and ultrasonic sensory information on a B 14 mobile robot. Training samples for the neural network are acquired without human intervention. Sensory snapshots are retrospectively associated with the distance to the wall, provided by on~ board odomctry as the robot travels in a straight line. The goal is to produce a more accurate measure of distance than is provided by the raw sensors. The neural network effectively combines sensory sources both within and between modalities. The improved distance percept is used to produce occupancy grid visualizations of the robot's environment. The maps produced point to specific problems of raw sensory information processing and demonstrate the benefits of using a neural network system for sensor fusion.Office of Naval Research and Naval Research Laboratory (00014-96-1-0772, 00014-95-1-0409, 00014-95-0657
Dynamic Occupancy Grid Prediction for Urban Autonomous Driving: A Deep Learning Approach with Fully Automatic Labeling
Long-term situation prediction plays a crucial role in the development of
intelligent vehicles. A major challenge still to overcome is the prediction of
complex downtown scenarios with multiple road users, e.g., pedestrians, bikes,
and motor vehicles, interacting with each other. This contribution tackles this
challenge by combining a Bayesian filtering technique for environment
representation, and machine learning as long-term predictor. More specifically,
a dynamic occupancy grid map is utilized as input to a deep convolutional
neural network. This yields the advantage of using spatially distributed
velocity estimates from a single time step for prediction, rather than a raw
data sequence, alleviating common problems dealing with input time series of
multiple sensors. Furthermore, convolutional neural networks have the inherent
characteristic of using context information, enabling the implicit modeling of
road user interaction. Pixel-wise balancing is applied in the loss function
counteracting the extreme imbalance between static and dynamic cells. One of
the major advantages is the unsupervised learning character due to fully
automatic label generation. The presented algorithm is trained and evaluated on
multiple hours of recorded sensor data and compared to Monte-Carlo simulation
Deep Network Uncertainty Maps for Indoor Navigation
Most mobile robots for indoor use rely on 2D laser scanners for localization,
mapping and navigation. These sensors, however, cannot detect transparent
surfaces or measure the full occupancy of complex objects such as tables. Deep
Neural Networks have recently been proposed to overcome this limitation by
learning to estimate object occupancy. These estimates are nevertheless subject
to uncertainty, making the evaluation of their confidence an important issue
for these measures to be useful for autonomous navigation and mapping. In this
work we approach the problem from two sides. First we discuss uncertainty
estimation in deep models, proposing a solution based on a fully convolutional
neural network. The proposed architecture is not restricted by the assumption
that the uncertainty follows a Gaussian model, as in the case of many popular
solutions for deep model uncertainty estimation, such as Monte-Carlo Dropout.
We present results showing that uncertainty over obstacle distances is actually
better modeled with a Laplace distribution. Then, we propose a novel approach
to build maps based on Deep Neural Network uncertainty models. In particular,
we present an algorithm to build a map that includes information over obstacle
distance estimates while taking into account the level of uncertainty in each
estimate. We show how the constructed map can be used to increase global
navigation safety by planning trajectories which avoid areas of high
uncertainty, enabling higher autonomy for mobile robots in indoor settings.Comment: Accepted for publication in "2019 IEEE-RAS International Conference
on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)
Probably Unknown: Deep Inverse Sensor Modelling In Radar
Radar presents a promising alternative to lidar and vision in autonomous
vehicle applications, able to detect objects at long range under a variety of
weather conditions. However, distinguishing between occupied and free space
from raw radar power returns is challenging due to complex interactions between
sensor noise and occlusion.
To counter this we propose to learn an Inverse Sensor Model (ISM) converting
a raw radar scan to a grid map of occupancy probabilities using a deep neural
network. Our network is self-supervised using partial occupancy labels
generated by lidar, allowing a robot to learn about world occupancy from past
experience without human supervision. We evaluate our approach on five hours of
data recorded in a dynamic urban environment. By accounting for the scene
context of each grid cell our model is able to successfully segment the world
into occupied and free space, outperforming standard CFAR filtering approaches.
Additionally by incorporating heteroscedastic uncertainty into our model
formulation, we are able to quantify the variance in the uncertainty throughout
the sensor observation. Through this mechanism we are able to successfully
identify regions of space that are likely to be occluded.Comment: 6 full pages, 1 page of reference
Object Detection and Classification in Occupancy Grid Maps using Deep Convolutional Networks
A detailed environment perception is a crucial component of automated
vehicles. However, to deal with the amount of perceived information, we also
require segmentation strategies. Based on a grid map environment
representation, well-suited for sensor fusion, free-space estimation and
machine learning, we detect and classify objects using deep convolutional
neural networks. As input for our networks we use a multi-layer grid map
efficiently encoding 3D range sensor information. The inference output consists
of a list of rotated bounding boxes with associated semantic classes. We
conduct extensive ablation studies, highlight important design considerations
when using grid maps and evaluate our models on the KITTI Bird's Eye View
benchmark. Qualitative and quantitative benchmark results show that we achieve
robust detection and state of the art accuracy solely using top-view grid maps
from range sensor data.Comment: 6 pages, 4 tables, 4 figure
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