829 research outputs found
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Beyond Probabilities
This position paper reflects on the state-of-the-art in decision-making under
uncertainty. A classical assumption is that probabilities can sufficiently
capture all uncertainty in a system. In this paper, the focus is on the
uncertainty that goes beyond this classical interpretation, particularly by
employing a clear distinction between aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty. The
paper features an overview of Markov decision processes (MDPs) and extensions
to account for partial observability and adversarial behavior. These models
sufficiently capture aleatoric uncertainty but fail to account for epistemic
uncertainty robustly. Consequently, we present a thorough overview of so-called
uncertainty models that exhibit uncertainty in a more robust interpretation. We
show several solution techniques for both discrete and continuous models,
ranging from formal verification, over control-based abstractions, to
reinforcement learning. As an integral part of this paper, we list and discuss
several key challenges that arise when dealing with rich types of uncertainty
in a model-based fashion
Formal methods paradigms for estimation and machine learning in dynamical systems
Formal methods are widely used in engineering to determine whether a system exhibits a certain property (verification) or to design controllers that are guaranteed to drive the system to achieve a certain property (synthesis). Most existing techniques require a large amount of accurate information about the system in order to be successful. The methods presented in this work can operate with significantly less prior information. In the domain of formal synthesis for robotics, the assumptions of perfect sensing and perfect knowledge of system dynamics are unrealistic. To address this issue, we present control algorithms that use active estimation and reinforcement learning to mitigate the effects of uncertainty. In the domain of cyber-physical system analysis, we relax the assumption that the system model is known and identify system properties automatically from execution data.
First, we address the problem of planning the path of a robot under temporal logic constraints (e.g. "avoid obstacles and periodically visit a recharging station") while simultaneously minimizing the uncertainty about the state of an unknown feature of the environment (e.g. locations of fires after a natural disaster). We present synthesis algorithms and evaluate them via simulation and experiments with aerial robots. Second, we develop a new specification language for tasks that require gathering information about and interacting with a partially observable environment, e.g. "Maintain localization error below a certain level while also avoiding obstacles.'' Third, we consider learning temporal logic properties of a dynamical system from a finite set of system outputs. For example, given maritime surveillance data we wish to find the specification that corresponds only to those vessels that are deemed law-abiding. Algorithms for performing off-line supervised and unsupervised learning and on-line supervised learning are presented. Finally, we consider the case in which we want to steer a system with unknown dynamics to satisfy a given temporal logic specification. We present a novel reinforcement learning paradigm to solve this problem. Our procedure gives "partial credit'' for executions that almost satisfy the specification, which can
lead to faster convergence rates and produce better solutions when the specification is not satisfiable
Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems
Formal methods refer to rigorous, mathematical approaches to system
development and have played a key role in establishing the correctness of
safety-critical systems. The main building blocks of formal methods are models
and specifications, which are analogous to behaviors and requirements in system
design and give us the means to verify and synthesize system behaviors with
formal guarantees.
This monograph provides a survey of the current state of the art on
applications of formal methods in the autonomous systems domain. We consider
correct-by-construction synthesis under various formulations, including closed
systems, reactive, and probabilistic settings. Beyond synthesizing systems in
known environments, we address the concept of uncertainty and bound the
behavior of systems that employ learning using formal methods. Further, we
examine the synthesis of systems with monitoring, a mitigation technique for
ensuring that once a system deviates from expected behavior, it knows a way of
returning to normalcy. We also show how to overcome some limitations of formal
methods themselves with learning. We conclude with future directions for formal
methods in reinforcement learning, uncertainty, privacy, explainability of
formal methods, and regulation and certification
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Oracle-Guided Design and Analysis of Learning-Based Cyber-Physical Systems
We are in world where autonomous systems, such as self-driving cars, surgical robots, robotic manipulators are becoming a reality. Such systems are considered \textit{safety-critical} since they interact with humans on a regular basis. Hence, before such systems can be integrated into our day to day life, we need to guarantee their safety. Recent success in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) has led to an increase in their use in real world robotic systems. For example, complex perception modules in self-driving cars and deep reinforcement learning controllers in robotic manipulators. Although powerful, they introduce an additional level of complexity when it comes to the formal analysis of autonomous systems. In this thesis, such systems are designated as Learning-Based Cyber-Physical Systems~(LB-CPS). In this thesis, we take inspiration from the Oracle-Guided Inductive Synthesis~(OGIS) paradigm to develop frameworks which can aid in achieving formal guarantees in different stages of an autonomous system design and analysis pipeline. Furthermore, we show that to guarantee the safety of LB-CPS, the design (synthesis) and analysis (verification) must consider feedback from the other. We consider five important parts of the design and analysis process and show a strong coupling among them, namely (i) Robust Control Synthesis from High Level Safety Specifications; (ii) Diagnosis and Repair of Safety Requirements for Control Synthesis; (iii) Counter-example Guided Data Augmentation for training high-accuracy ML models; (iv) Simulation-Guided Falsification and Verification against Adversarial Environments; and (v) Bridging Model and Real-World Gap. Finally, we introduce a software toolkit \verifai{} for the design and analysis of AI based systems, which was developed to provide a common formal platform to implement design and analysis frameworks for LB-CPS
Risk-aware shielding of Partially Observable Monte Carlo Planning policies
Partially Observable Monte Carlo Planning (POMCP) is a powerful online algorithm that can generate approximate policies for large Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes. The online nature of this method supports scalability by avoiding complete policy representation. However, the lack of an explicit policy representation hinders interpretability and a proper evaluation of the risks an agent may incur. In this work, we propose a methodology based on Maximum Satisfiability Modulo Theory (MAX-SMT) for analyzing POMCP policies by inspecting their traces, namely, sequences of belief- action pairs generated by the algorithm. The proposed method explores local properties of the policy to build a compact and informative summary of the policy behaviour. Moreover, we introduce a rich and formal language that a domain expert can use to describe the expected behaviour of a policy. In more detail, we present a formulation that directly computes the risk involved in taking actions by considering the high- level elements specified by the expert. The final formula can identify risky decisions taken by POMCP that violate the expert indications. We show that this identification process can be used offline (to improve the policy’s explainability and identify anomalous behaviours) or online (to shield the risky decisions of the POMCP algorithm). We present an extended evaluation of our approach on four domains: the well-known tiger and rocksample benchmarks, a problem of velocity regulation in mobile robots, and a problem of battery management in mobile robots. We test the methodology against a state-of- the-art anomaly detection algorithm to show that our approach can be used to identify anomalous behaviours in faulty POMCP. We also show, comparing the performance of shielded and unshielded POMCP, that the shielding mechanism can improve the system’s performance. We provide an open-source implementation of the proposed methodologies at https://github.com/GiuMaz/XPOMCP
How to Certify Machine Learning Based Safety-critical Systems? A Systematic Literature Review
Context: Machine Learning (ML) has been at the heart of many innovations over
the past years. However, including it in so-called 'safety-critical' systems
such as automotive or aeronautic has proven to be very challenging, since the
shift in paradigm that ML brings completely changes traditional certification
approaches.
Objective: This paper aims to elucidate challenges related to the
certification of ML-based safety-critical systems, as well as the solutions
that are proposed in the literature to tackle them, answering the question 'How
to Certify Machine Learning Based Safety-critical Systems?'.
Method: We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of research papers
published between 2015 to 2020, covering topics related to the certification of
ML systems. In total, we identified 217 papers covering topics considered to be
the main pillars of ML certification: Robustness, Uncertainty, Explainability,
Verification, Safe Reinforcement Learning, and Direct Certification. We
analyzed the main trends and problems of each sub-field and provided summaries
of the papers extracted.
Results: The SLR results highlighted the enthusiasm of the community for this
subject, as well as the lack of diversity in terms of datasets and type of
models. It also emphasized the need to further develop connections between
academia and industries to deepen the domain study. Finally, it also
illustrated the necessity to build connections between the above mention main
pillars that are for now mainly studied separately.
Conclusion: We highlighted current efforts deployed to enable the
certification of ML based software systems, and discuss some future research
directions.Comment: 60 pages (92 pages with references and complements), submitted to a
journal (Automated Software Engineering). Changes: Emphasizing difference
traditional software engineering / ML approach. Adding Related Works, Threats
to Validity and Complementary Materials. Adding a table listing papers
reference for each section/subsection
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