PoseCNN: A Convolutional Neural Network for 6D Object Pose Estimation in Cluttered Scenes

Estimating the 6D pose of known objects is important for robots to interact with the real world. The problem is challenging due to the variety of objects as well as the complexity of a scene caused by clutter and occlusions between objects. In this work, we introduce PoseCNN, a new Convolutional Neural Network for 6D object pose estimation. PoseCNN estimates the 3D translation of an object by localizing its center in the image and predicting its distance from the camera. The 3D rotation of the object is estimated by regressing to a quaternion representation. We also introduce a novel loss function that enables PoseCNN to handle symmetric objects. In addition, we contribute a large scale video dataset for 6D object pose estimation named the YCB-Video dataset. Our dataset provides accurate 6D poses of 21 objects from the YCB dataset observed in 92 videos with 133,827 frames. We conduct extensive experiments on our YCB-Video dataset and the OccludedLINEMOD dataset to show that PoseCNN is highly robust to occlusions, can handle symmetric objects, and provide accurate pose estimation using only color images as input. When using depth data to further refine the poses, our approach achieves state-of-the-art results on the challenging OccludedLINEMOD dataset. Our code and dataset are available at https://rse-lab.cs.washington.edu/projects/posecnn/.Comment: Accepted to RSS 201

Precommitment and random exchange rates in symmetric duopoly: a new theory of multinational production

Recent volatility in real exchange rates has renewed interest in the nature of multinational firms. One increasingly common phenomenon involves the foreign sourcing of production, in which certain domestic firms choose to produce part or all of their product abroad and then export the commodity for domestic sale. Multinational production has been rationalized on the basis of inherent asymmetries between firms, such as the possession of certain firm-specific assets or differences between firms in their perceptions of foreign production costs, access to foreign subsidy programs, and the possibility of tariff preemption. Such behavior has also been rationalized in terms of corporate risk-aversion and a desire to hedge real exchange rate risk through the diversification of production locations. This paper presents an entirely novel explanation for the existence of multinational firms and the foreign sourcing of production. Rather than relying on exogenous asymmetries between firms or on assumptions about corporate aversion to risk, this explanation recognizes that exchange rate uncertainty may offer a purely strategic motive for symmetric and risk-neutral domestic oligopolists to precommit to foreign production in order to attain a position of industry leadership. This explanation is presented in the specific context of a two-period model of strategic foreign production by domestic duopolists. Strategically symmetric and risk-neutral firms are confronted by a unique source of uncertainty in the form of a randomly fluctuating exchange rate. Exchange rate uncertainty is resolved, for the purposes of current production decisions, between the two periods. Precommitted foreign production in the first period yields a leadership advantage relative to firms that do not precommit, but this decision must be evaluated against the value of the alternative of remaining flexible to adopt a production plan after the resolution of exchange rate uncertainty. A unique symmetric sequential equilibrium in mixed strategies is determined in this market, allowing a Stackelberg leader to endogenously emerge through a credible precommitment to the foreign sourcing of production.International business enterprises ; Foreign exchange rates