DOP: Deep Optimistic Planning with Approximate Value Function Evaluation

Research on reinforcement learning has demonstrated promising results in manifold applications and domains. Still, efficiently learning effective robot behaviors is very difficult, due to unstructured scenarios, high uncertainties, and large state dimensionality (e.g. multi-agent systems or hyper-redundant robots). To alleviate this problem, we present DOP, a deep model-based reinforcement learning algorithm, which exploits action values to both (1) guide the exploration of the state space and (2) plan effective policies. Specifically, we exploit deep neural networks to learn Q-functions that are used to attack the curse of dimensionality during a Monte-Carlo tree search. Our algorithm, in fact, constructs upper confidence bounds on the learned value function to select actions optimistically. We implement and evaluate DOP on different scenarios: (1) a cooperative navigation problem, (2) a fetching task for a 7-DOF KUKA robot, and (3) a human-robot handover with a humanoid robot (both in simulation and real). The obtained results show the effectiveness of DOP in the chosen applications, where action values drive the exploration and reduce the computational demand of the planning process while achieving good performance

Q-CP: Learning Action Values for Cooperative Planning

Research on multi-robot systems has demonstrated promising results in manifold applications and domains. Still, efficiently learning an effective robot behaviors is very difficult, due to unstructured scenarios, high uncertainties, and large state dimensionality (e.g. hyper-redundant and groups of robot). To alleviate this problem, we present Q-CP a cooperative model-based reinforcement learning algorithm, which exploits action values to both (1) guide the exploration of the state space and (2) generate effective policies. Specifically, we exploit Q-learning to attack the curse-of-dimensionality in the iterations of a Monte-Carlo Tree Search. We implement and evaluate Q-CP on different stochastic cooperative (general-sum) games: (1) a simple cooperative navigation problem among 3 robots, (2) a cooperation scenario between a pair of KUKA YouBots performing hand-overs, and (3) a coordination task between two mobile robots entering a door. The obtained results show the effectiveness of Q-CP in the chosen applications, where action values drive the exploration and reduce the computational demand of the planning process while achieving good performance

S-AVE Semantic Active Vision Exploration and Mapping of Indoor Environments for Mobile Robots

Semantic mapping is fundamental to enable cognition and high-level planning in robotics. It is a difficult task due to generalization to different scenarios and sensory data types. Hence, most techniques do not obtain a rich and accurate semantic map of the environment and of the objects therein. To tackle this issue we present a novel approach that exploits active vision and drives environment exploration aiming at improving the quality of the semantic map

DOP: Deep Optimistic Planning with Approximate Value Function Evaluation

Research on reinforcement learning has demonstrated promising results in manifold applications and domains. Still, efficiently learning effective robot behaviors is very difficult, due to unstructured scenarios, high uncertainties, and large state dimensionality (e.g. multi-agent systems or hyper-redundant robots). To alleviate this problem, we present DOP, a deep model-based reinforcement learning algorithm, which exploits action values to both (1) guide the exploration of the state space and (2) plan effective policies. Specifically, we exploit deep neural networks to learn Q-functions that are used to attack the curse of dimensionality during a Monte-Carlo tree search. Our algorithm, in fact, constructs upper confidence bounds on the learned value function to select actions optimistically. We implement and evaluate DOP on different scenarios: (1) a cooperative navigation problem, (2) a fetching task for a 7-DOF KUKA robot, and (3) a human-robot handover with a humanoid robot (both in simulation and real). The obtained results show the effectiveness of DOP in the chosen applications, where action values drive the exploration and reduce the computational demand of the planning process while achieving good performance.Comment: to appear as an extended abstract paper in the Proc. of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2018), Stockholm, Sweden, July 10-15, 2018, IFAAMAS. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1803.0029

an spm po based polarimetrie two scale model

AbstractA polarimetric two-scale scattering model employed to retrieve the surface parameters of bare soils from polarimetric SAR data is presented. The scattering surface is here considered as composed of randomly tilted rough facets, for which the SPM or the PO hold. The facet random tilt causes a random variation of the local incidence angle, and a random rotation of the local incidence plane around the line-of-sight, which in turn causes a random rotation of the facet scattering matrix. Unlike other similar already existing approaches, our method considers both these effects. The proposed scattering model is then used to retrieve bare soil moisture and large-scale roughness from the co-polarized and cross-polarized ratios

Railways’ Stability Observation by Satellite Radar Images

Remote sensing has many vital civilian applications. Space-borne Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar has been used to measure the Earth’s surface deformation widely. In particular, Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) is designed to estimate the temporal characteristics of the Earth’s deformation rates from multiple InSAR images acquired over time. This chapter reviews the space-borne Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar techniques that have shown their capabilities in monitoring of railways displacements. After description of the current state of the art and potentials of the available radar remote sensing techniques, one case study is examined, pertaining to a railway bridge in the Campania region, Italy