297 research outputs found
Incrementally Learned Mixture Models for GNSS Localization
GNSS localization is an important part of today's autonomous systems,
although it suffers from non-Gaussian errors caused by non-line-of-sight
effects. Recent methods are able to mitigate these effects by including the
corresponding distributions in the sensor fusion algorithm. However, these
approaches require prior knowledge about the sensor's distribution, which is
often not available. We introduce a novel sensor fusion algorithm based on
variational Bayesian inference, that is able to approximate the true
distribution with a Gaussian mixture model and to learn its parametrization
online. The proposed Incremental Variational Mixture algorithm automatically
adapts the number of mixture components to the complexity of the measurement's
error distribution. We compare the proposed algorithm against current
state-of-the-art approaches using a collection of open access real world
datasets and demonstrate its superior localization accuracy.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, published in proceedings of IEEE Intelligent
Vehicles Symposium (IV) 201
Generative Temporal Models with Spatial Memory for Partially Observed Environments
In model-based reinforcement learning, generative and temporal models of
environments can be leveraged to boost agent performance, either by tuning the
agent's representations during training or via use as part of an explicit
planning mechanism. However, their application in practice has been limited to
simplistic environments, due to the difficulty of training such models in
larger, potentially partially-observed and 3D environments. In this work we
introduce a novel action-conditioned generative model of such challenging
environments. The model features a non-parametric spatial memory system in
which we store learned, disentangled representations of the environment.
Low-dimensional spatial updates are computed using a state-space model that
makes use of knowledge on the prior dynamics of the moving agent, and
high-dimensional visual observations are modelled with a Variational
Auto-Encoder. The result is a scalable architecture capable of performing
coherent predictions over hundreds of time steps across a range of partially
observed 2D and 3D environments.Comment: ICML 201
Enabling Robust State Estimation through Covariance Adaptation
Several robust state estimation frameworks have been proposed over the previous decades. Underpinning all of these robust frameworks is one dubious assumption. Specifically, the assumption that an accurate a priori measurement uncertainty model can be provided. As systems become more autonomous, this assumption becomes less valid (i.e., as systems start operating in novel environments, there is no guarantee that the assumed a priori measurement uncertainty model characterizes the sensors current observation uncertainty).
In an attempt to relax this assumption, a novel robust state estimation framework is proposed. The proposed framework enables robust state estimation through the iterative adaptation of the measurement uncertainty model. The adaptation of the measurement uncertainty model is granted through non-parametric clustering of the estimator\u27 s residuals, which enables the characterization of the measurement uncertainty via a Gaussian mixture model. This Gaussian mixture model based measurement uncertainty characterization can be incorporated into any non-linear least square optimization routine.
Within this dissertation, the proposed framework is instantiated into three novel robust state estimation algorithms: batch covariance estimation (BCE), batch covariance estimation over an augmented data space (BCE-AD), and incremental covariance estimation (ICE). To verify the proposed framework, three global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data sets were collected. The collected data sets provide varying levels of observation degradation to enable the characterization of the proposed algorithm on a diverse data set. Utilizing these data sets, it is shown that the proposed framework exhibits improved state estimation accuracy when compared to other robust estimation techniques when confronted with degraded data quality
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