Ground Vehicle Navigation with Depth Camera and Tracking Camera

The aim of this research is to provide autonomous navigation of a 4 wheel vehicle using commercial, off-the-shelf depth and tracking cameras. Some sensitive operations need accuracy within a few inches of navigation ability for indoor or outdoor scenarios where GPS signals are not available. Combination of the Visual Odometry (VO), Distance-Depth (D-D), and Object Detection data from the cameras can be used for accurate navigation and object avoidance. The Intel RealSense D435i, a depth camera, generates depth measurements and the relative position vector of an object. The Intel RealSense T265, a tracking camera, generates its own coordinate system and grabs coordinate goals. Both of them can generate Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) data. The cameras share their data to provide a more robust capability. Combining the Intel cameras with a Pixhawk autopilot, it was demonstrated that the vehicle can follow a desired path and avoid objects along that path

Self-supervised Equality Embedded Deep Lagrange Dual for Approximate Constrained Optimization

Conventional solvers are often computationally expensive for constrained optimization, particularly in large-scale and time-critical problems. While this leads to a growing interest in using neural networks (NNs) as fast optimal solution approximators, incorporating the constraints with NNs is challenging. In this regard, we propose deep Lagrange dual with equality embedding (DeepLDE), a framework that learns to find an optimal solution without using labels. To ensure feasible solutions, we embed equality constraints into the NNs and train the NNs using the primal-dual method to impose inequality constraints. Furthermore, we prove the convergence of DeepLDE and show that the primal-dual learning method alone cannot ensure equality constraints without the help of equality embedding. Simulation results on convex, non-convex, and AC optimal power flow (AC-OPF) problems show that the proposed DeepLDE achieves the smallest optimality gap among all the NN-based approaches while always ensuring feasible solutions. Furthermore, the computation time of the proposed method is about 5 to 250 times faster than DC3 and the conventional solvers in solving constrained convex, non-convex optimization, and/or AC-OPF.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Locational Scenario-based Pricing in a Bilateral Distribution Energy Market under Uncertainty

In recent years, there has been a significant focus on advancing the next generation of power systems. Despite these efforts, persistent challenges revolve around addressing the operational impact of uncertainty on predicted data, especially concerning economic dispatch and optimal power flow. To tackle these challenges, we introduce a stochastic day-ahead scheduling approach for a community. This method involves iterative improvements in economic dispatch and optimal power flow, aiming to minimize operational costs by incorporating quantile forecasting. Then, we present a real-time market and payment problem to handle optimization in real-time decision-making and payment calculation. We assess the effectiveness of our proposed method against benchmark results and conduct a test using data from 50 real households to demonstrate its practicality. Furthermore, we compare our method with existing studies in the field across two different seasons of the year. In the summer season, our method decreases optimality gap by 60% compared to the baseline, and in the winter season, it reduces optimality gap by 67%. Moreover, our proposed method mitigates the congestion of distribution network by 16.7\% within a day caused by uncertain energy, which is a crucial aspect for implementing energy markets in the real world

Regularizing Towards Soft Equivariance Under Mixed Symmetries

Datasets often have their intrinsic symmetries, and particular deep-learning models called equivariant or invariant models have been developed to exploit these symmetries. However, if some or all of these symmetries are only approximate, which frequently happens in practice, these models may be suboptimal due to the architectural restrictions imposed on them. We tackle this issue of approximate symmetries in a setup where symmetries are mixed, i.e., they are symmetries of not single but multiple different types and the degree of approximation varies across these types. Instead of proposing a new architectural restriction as in most of the previous approaches, we present a regularizer-based method for building a model for a dataset with mixed approximate symmetries. The key component of our method is what we call equivariance regularizer for a given type of symmetries, which measures how much a model is equivariant with respect to the symmetries of the type. Our method is trained with these regularizers, one per each symmetry type, and the strength of the regularizers is automatically tuned during training, leading to the discovery of the approximation levels of some candidate symmetry types without explicit supervision. Using synthetic function approximation and motion forecasting tasks, we demonstrate that our method achieves better accuracy than prior approaches while discovering the approximate symmetry levels correctly.Comment: Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 202

Flow-Induced Voltage Generation Over Monolayer Graphene in the Presence of Herringbone Grooves

While flow-induced voltage over a graphene layer has been reported, its origin remains unclear. In our previous study, we suggested different mechanisms for different experimental configurations: phonon dragging effect for the parallel alignment and an enhanced out-of-plane phonon mode for the perpendicular alignment (Appl. Phys. Lett. 102:063116, 2011). In order to further examine the origin of flow-induced voltage, we introduced a transverse flow component by integrating staggered herringbone grooves in the microchannel. We found that the flow-induced voltage decreased significantly in the presence of herringbone grooves in both parallel and perpendicular alignments. These results support our previous interpretation

Learning Symmetrization for Equivariance with Orbit Distance Minimization

We present a general framework for symmetrizing an arbitrary neural-network architecture and making it equivariant with respect to a given group. We build upon the proposals of Kim et al. (2023); Kaba et al. (2023) for symmetrization, and improve them by replacing their conversion of neural features into group representations, with an optimization whose loss intuitively measures the distance between group orbits. This change makes our approach applicable to a broader range of matrix groups, such as the Lorentz group O(1, 3), than these two proposals. We experimentally show our method's competitiveness on the SO(2) image classification task, and also its increased generality on the task with O(1, 3). Our implementation will be made accessible at https://github.com/tiendatnguyen-vision/Orbit-symmetrize.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur

On the Consideration of AI Openness: Can Good Intent Be Abused?

Openness is critical for the advancement of science. In particular, recent rapid progress in AI has been made possible only by various open-source models, datasets, and libraries. However, this openness also means that technologies can be freely used for socially harmful purposes. Can open-source models or datasets be used for malicious purposes? If so, how easy is it to adapt technology for such goals? Here, we conduct a case study in the legal domain, a realm where individual decisions can have profound social consequences. To this end, we build EVE, a dataset consisting of 200 examples of questions and corresponding answers about criminal activities based on 200 Korean precedents. We found that a widely accepted open-source LLM, which initially refuses to answer unethical questions, can be easily tuned with EVE to provide unethical and informative answers about criminal activities. This implies that although open-source technologies contribute to scientific progress, some care must be taken to mitigate possible malicious use cases. Warning: This paper contains contents that some may find unethical.Comment: 10 page

Analysis and Introduction of Effective Permeability with Additional Air-Gaps on Wireless Power Transfer Coils for Electric Vehicle based on SAE J2954 Recommended Practice

The wireless power transfer (WPT) method for electric vehicles (EVs) is becoming more popular, and to ensure the interoperability of WPT systems, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) established the J2954 recommended practice (RP). It includes powering frequency, electrical parameters, specifications, testing procedures, and other contents for EV WPT. Specifically, it describes the ranges of self-inductances of the transmitting coil, the receiving coil, and coupling coefficient (k), as well as the impedance matching values of the WPT system. Following the electrical parameters listed in SAE J2954 RP is crucial to ensure the EV wireless charging system is interoperable. This paper introduces a method for adjusting the effective permeability of the ferrite blocks in the standard model, to tune the self-inductance of the coils as well as the coupling coefficient. To guarantee the given values of the self-inductance of the coil and coupling coefficient matched those in the standard, we slightly modified the air-gap between the ferrite tiles in a specific region. Based on this method, it was possible to successfully tune the self-inductance of the transmitting coil and receiving coil as well as the coupling coefficient. The proposed method was verified by simulation and experimental measurements