93 research outputs found
Bi-Mapper: Holistic BEV Semantic Mapping for Autonomous Driving
A semantic map of the road scene, covering fundamental road elements, is an
essential ingredient in autonomous driving systems. It provides important
perception foundations for positioning and planning when rendered in the
Bird's-Eye-View (BEV). Currently, the prior knowledge of hypothetical depth can
guide the learning of translating front perspective views into BEV directly
with the help of calibration parameters. However, it suffers from geometric
distortions in the representation of distant objects. In addition, another
stream of methods without prior knowledge can learn the transformation between
front perspective views and BEV implicitly with a global view. Considering that
the fusion of different learning methods may bring surprising beneficial
effects, we propose a Bi-Mapper framework for top-down road-scene semantic
understanding, which incorporates a global view and local prior knowledge. To
enhance reliable interaction between them, an asynchronous mutual learning
strategy is proposed. At the same time, an Across-Space Loss (ASL) is designed
to mitigate the negative impact of geometric distortions. Extensive results on
nuScenes and Cam2BEV datasets verify the consistent effectiveness of each
module in the proposed Bi-Mapper framework. Compared with exiting road mapping
networks, the proposed Bi-Mapper achieves 2.1% higher IoU on the nuScenes
dataset. Moreover, we verify the generalization performance of Bi-Mapper in a
real-world driving scenario. The source code is publicly available at
https://github.com/lynn-yu/Bi-Mapper.Comment: Accepted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). The source
code is publicly available at https://github.com/lynn-yu/Bi-Mappe
FusionPlanner: A Multi-task Motion Planner for Mining Trucks using Multi-sensor Fusion Method
In recent years, significant achievements have been made in motion planning
for intelligent vehicles. However, as a typical unstructured environment,
open-pit mining attracts limited attention due to its complex operational
conditions and adverse environmental factors. A comprehensive paradigm for
unmanned transportation in open-pit mines is proposed in this research,
including a simulation platform, a testing benchmark, and a trustworthy and
robust motion planner. \textcolor{red}{Firstly, we propose a multi-task motion
planning algorithm, called FusionPlanner, for autonomous mining trucks by the
Multi-sensor fusion method to adapt both lateral and longitudinal control tasks
for unmanned transportation. Then, we develop a novel benchmark called
MiningNav, which offers three validation approaches to evaluate the
trustworthiness and robustness of well-trained algorithms in transportation
roads of open-pit mines. Finally, we introduce the Parallel Mining Simulator
(PMS), a new high-fidelity simulator specifically designed for open-pit mining
scenarios. PMS enables the users to manage and control open-pit mine
transportation from both the single-truck control and multi-truck scheduling
perspectives.} \textcolor{red}{The performance of FusionPlanner is tested by
MiningNav in PMS, and the empirical results demonstrate a significant reduction
in the number of collisions and takeovers of our planner. We anticipate our
unmanned transportation paradigm will bring mining trucks one step closer to
trustworthiness and robustness in continuous round-the-clock unmanned
transportation.Comment: 2Pages, 10 figure
Milestones in Autonomous Driving and Intelligent Vehicles Part II: Perception and Planning
Growing interest in autonomous driving (AD) and intelligent vehicles (IVs) is
fueled by their promise for enhanced safety, efficiency, and economic benefits.
While previous surveys have captured progress in this field, a comprehensive
and forward-looking summary is needed. Our work fills this gap through three
distinct articles. The first part, a "Survey of Surveys" (SoS), outlines the
history, surveys, ethics, and future directions of AD and IV technologies. The
second part, "Milestones in Autonomous Driving and Intelligent Vehicles Part I:
Control, Computing System Design, Communication, HD Map, Testing, and Human
Behaviors" delves into the development of control, computing system,
communication, HD map, testing, and human behaviors in IVs. This part, the
third part, reviews perception and planning in the context of IVs. Aiming to
provide a comprehensive overview of the latest advancements in AD and IVs, this
work caters to both newcomers and seasoned researchers. By integrating the SoS
and Part I, we offer unique insights and strive to serve as a bridge between
past achievements and future possibilities in this dynamic field.Comment: 17pages, 6figures. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics: System
Motion Planning for Autonomous Driving: The State of the Art and Future Perspectives
Thanks to the augmented convenience, safety advantages, and potential
commercial value, Intelligent vehicles (IVs) have attracted wide attention
throughout the world. Although a few autonomous driving unicorns assert that
IVs will be commercially deployable by 2025, their implementation is still
restricted to small-scale validation due to various issues, among which precise
computation of control commands or trajectories by planning methods remains a
prerequisite for IVs. This paper aims to review state-of-the-art planning
methods, including pipeline planning and end-to-end planning methods. In terms
of pipeline methods, a survey of selecting algorithms is provided along with a
discussion of the expansion and optimization mechanisms, whereas in end-to-end
methods, the training approaches and verification scenarios of driving tasks
are points of concern. Experimental platforms are reviewed to facilitate
readers in selecting suitable training and validation methods. Finally, the
current challenges and future directions are discussed. The side-by-side
comparison presented in this survey not only helps to gain insights into the
strengths and limitations of the reviewed methods but also assists with
system-level design choices.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures and 5 table
One independent or many independent? The relationship among self-construal, number of brand endorsers, and brand attitudes
IntroductionIt was common for brands to use different numbers of endorsers in marketing practice. Nevertheless, research on brand endorsers’ quantity has not yielded a uniform consensus. The previous research about brand endorsers mainly focuses on the appeal of endorsement, brand category, and endorser characteristics, paying less attention to the impact of cultural factors, particularly self-construal. This study delves into selecting brand endorsers across diverse cultural regions for the same brand.MethodsDrawing on the principles of self-consistency theory and self-construal theory, our research, conducted through three distinct experiments, reveals that consumers tend to hold more favorable opinions about brands endorsed by a single individual. Furthermore, self-consistency emerges as a crucial mediating factor in this phenomenon. Additionally, self-construal is an essential factor among consumers from various cultural backgrounds.ResultsConsumers with an independent self-construal exhibit more favorable brand perceptions when it comes to single-endorser brands compared to their counterparts with an interdependent self-construal. Conversely, individuals with an interdependent self-construal demonstrate a more positive disposition towards brands with multiple endorsers than those with an independent self-construal.DiscussionThis research not only enriches and extends our theoretical understanding of the impact of the number of brand endorsers on consumer brand attitudes but also provides valuable practical insights for optimizing the selection of brand endorsers for companies
Milestones in Autonomous Driving and Intelligent Vehicles Part \uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral1}: Control, Computing System Design, Communication, HD Map, Testing, and Human Behaviors
Interest in autonomous driving (AD) and intelligent vehicles (IVs) is growing
at a rapid pace due to the convenience, safety, and economic benefits. Although
a number of surveys have reviewed research achievements in this field, they are
still limited in specific tasks and lack systematic summaries and research
directions in the future. Our work is divided into 3 independent articles and
the first part is a Survey of Surveys (SoS) for total technologies of AD and
IVs that involves the history, summarizes the milestones, and provides the
perspectives, ethics, and future research directions. This is the second part
(Part \uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral1} for this technical survey) to
review the development of control, computing system design, communication, High
Definition map (HD map), testing, and human behaviors in IVs. In addition, the
third part (Part \uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral2} for this technical
survey) is to review the perception and planning sections. The objective of
this paper is to involve all the sections of AD, summarize the latest technical
milestones, and guide abecedarians to quickly understand the development of AD
and IVs. Combining the SoS and Part \uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral2}, we
anticipate that this work will bring novel and diverse insights to researchers
and abecedarians, and serve as a bridge between past and future.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 3 table
Room temperature 2D ferromagnetism in few-layered 1-CrTe
Spin-related electronics using two dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW)
materials as a platform are believed to hold great promise for revolutionizing
the next generation spintronics. Although many emerging new phenomena have been
unravelled in 2D electronic systems with spin long-range orderings, the
scarcely reported room temperature magnetic vdW material has thus far hindered
the related applications. Here, we show that intrinsic ferromagnetically
aligned spin polarization can hold up to 316 K in a metallic phase of
1-CrTe in the few-layer limit. This room temperature 2D long range
spin interaction may be beneficial from an itinerant enhancement. Spin
transport measurements indicate an in-plane room temperature negative
anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in few-layered CrTe, but a sign
change in the AMR at lower temperature, with -0.6 at 300 K and +5 at 10
K, respectively. This behavior may originate from the specific spin polarized
band structure of CrTe. Our findings provide insights into magnetism in
few-layered CrTe, suggesting potential for future room temperature
spintronic applications of such 2D vdW magnets.Comment: 9 Pages, 4 Figure
Milestones in autonomous driving and intelligent vehicles: survey of surveys
Interest in autonomous driving (AD) and intelligent vehicles (IVs) is growing at a rapid pace due to the convenience, safety, and economic benefits. Although a number of surveys have reviewed research achievements in this field, they are still limited in specific tasks, lack of systematic summary and research directions in the future. Here we propose a Survey of Surveys (SoS) for total technologies of AD and IVs that reviews the history, summarizes the milestones, and provides the perspectives, ethics, and future research directions. To our knowledge, this article is the first SoS with milestones in AD and IVs, which constitutes our complete research work together with two other technical surveys. We anticipate that this article will bring novel and diverse insights to researchers and abecedarians, and serve as a bridge between past and future
Long-term exposure to air pollution and lung function among children in China: Association and effect modification
BackgroundChildren are vulnerable to the respiratory effects of air pollution, and their lung function has been associated with long-term exposure to low air pollution level in developed countries. However, the impact of contemporary air pollution level in developing countries as a result of recent efforts to improve air quality on children's lung function is less understood.MethodsWe obtained a cross-sectional sample of 617 schoolchildren living in three differently polluted areas in Anhui province, China. 2-year average concentrations of air pollutants at the year of spirometry and the previous year (2017–2018) obtained from district-level air monitoring stations were used to characterize long-term exposure. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), and forced expiratory flow between 25 and 75% of FVC (FEF25−75) were determined under strict quality control. Multivariable regression was employed to evaluate the associations between air pollution level and lung function parameters, overall and by demographic characteristics, lifestyle, and vitamin D that was determined by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.ResultsMean concentration of fine particulate matter was 44.7 μg/m3, which is slightly above the interim target 1 standard of the World Health Organization. After adjusting for confounders, FVC, FEV1, and FEF25−75 showed inverse trends with increasing air pollution levels, with children in high exposure group exhibiting 87.9 [95% confidence interval (CI): 9.5, 166.4] mL decrement in FEV1 and 195.3 (95% CI: 30.5, 360.1) mL/s decrement in FEF25−75 compared with those in low exposure group. Additionally, the above negative associations were more pronounced among those who were younger, girls, not exposed to secondhand smoke, non-overweight, physically inactive, or vitamin D deficient.ConclusionsOur study suggests that long-term exposure to relatively high air pollution was associated with impaired lung function in children. More stringent pollution control measures and intervention strategies accounting for effect modification are needed for vulnerable populations in China and other developing countries
Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO
Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical
events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before
(pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the
multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the
monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and
SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is
a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The
real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the
electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to
ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming
a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to
the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos
up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30 for the case
of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is
evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay
interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert,
can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the
next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure
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