Learning Pose Estimation for UAV Autonomous Navigation and Landing Using Visual-Inertial Sensor Data

In this work, we propose a robust network-in-the-loop control system for autonomous navigation and landing of an Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicle (UAV). To estimate the UAV’s absolute pose, we develop a deep neural network (DNN) architecture for visual-inertial odometry, which provides a robust alternative to traditional methods. We first evaluate the accuracy of the estimation by comparing the prediction of our model to traditional visual-inertial approaches on the publicly available EuRoC MAV dataset. The results indicate a clear improvement in the accuracy of the pose estimation up to 25% over the baseline. Finally, we integrate the data-driven estimator in the closed-loop flight control system of Airsim, a simulator available as a plugin for Unreal Engine, and we provide simulation results for autonomous navigation and landing

FFT-Based Deep Learning Deployment in Embedded Systems

Deep learning has delivered its powerfulness in many application domains, especially in image and speech recognition. As the backbone of deep learning, deep neural networks (DNNs) consist of multiple layers of various types with hundreds to thousands of neurons. Embedded platforms are now becoming essential for deep learning deployment due to their portability, versatility, and energy efficiency. The large model size of DNNs, while providing excellent accuracy, also burdens the embedded platforms with intensive computation and storage. Researchers have investigated on reducing DNN model size with negligible accuracy loss. This work proposes a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based DNN training and inference model suitable for embedded platforms with reduced asymptotic complexity of both computation and storage, making our approach distinguished from existing approaches. We develop the training and inference algorithms based on FFT as the computing kernel and deploy the FFT-based inference model on embedded platforms achieving extraordinary processing speed.Comment: Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (DATE) For source code, please contact Mahdi Nazemi at <[email protected]

Assortative Marriage and the Effects of Government Homecare Subsidy Programs on Gender Wage and Participation Inequality

We develop a model of the labor market where firms incur an adjustment cost when one of their workers quits, and males and females form households assortatively by skill. We show how this environment can lead to an economy where females earn less and drop out more frequently than equally skilled males in equilibrium, even when males and females constitute ex-ante identical populations. We then examine how different government homecare subsidy schemes may affect such gender inequality in the labor market. We show that the effect of government homecare subsidy schemes on gender inequality depends crucially on the form in which the subsidy is given and to whom it is allocated.Gender Inequality, Discrimination, Subsidized Childcare

Asymmetric First-Price Menu Auctions under Intricate Uncertainty

This paper studies asymmetric first-price menu auctions in the procurement environment where the buyer does not commit to a decision rule and asymmetric sellers have interdependent costs and statistically affiliated signals. Sellers compete in bidding a menu of contracts, where a contract specifies a vector of characteristics and a payment required from the buyer for delivering these characteristics. The buyer does not commit ex-ante to a decision rule but rather upon observing all the menus offered by sellers chooses the best contract. This paper establishes the existence of a continuum of separating monotone equilibria in this game bounded above by the jointly ex-post efficient outcome and below by the jointly interim efficient outcome. It shows that the jointly ex-post efficient equilibrium outcome is the only ex-post renegotiation proof outcome and it is also ex-ante robust to all continuation equilibriafirst-price menu auction, interdependent values, monotone equilibria, joint ex-post renegotiation-proofness, ex-ante robustness

Han Fei's Enlightened Ruler

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao

On Take It or Leave It Offers in Common Agency

If the agent's preference relation satisfies a strict monotonicity condition in common agency under the asymmetric information, the set of all equilibrium allocations in the menu game where menus of contracts are allowed coincides with the set of all equilibrium allocations in the single contract game where only single contracts are allowed.take it or leave it offers, menus, common agency, robust equilibrium allocations, mixed-strategy equilibrium

A Bargaining Model of Tax Competition

This paper develops a model in which competing governments offer financial incentives to individual firms to induce the firms to locate within their jurisdictions. Equilibrium is described under three specifications of the supplementary taxes. There is no misallocation of capital under two of these specifications, and there might or might not be capital misallocation under the third. This result contrasts strongly with that of the standard tax competition model, which does not allow governments to treat firms individually. That model almost always finds that competition among governments leads to the misallocation of capital.

Implicit Collusion in Non-Exclusive Contracting under Adverse Selection

This paper studies how implicit collusion may take place through simple non-exclusive contracting under adverse selection when multiple buyers (e.g., entrepreneurs with risky projects) non-exclusively contract with multiple firms (e.g., banks). It shows that any price schedule can be supported as equilibrium terms of trade in the market if each firm's expected profit is no less than its reservation profit. Firms sustain collusive outcomes through the triggering trading mechanism in which they change their terms of trade contingent only on buyers' reports on the lowest average price that the deviating firm's trading mechanism would induce. It suggests that a good can be overpriced in a competitive market even with fully rational traders and without firms' explicit collusive agreement.collusion, non-exclusive contracting, competing mechanisms

Temiar Dream Music – Han Joi

A narrative song as a form of telling folklore. It is accompanied by a Percussion instrument, a gong with leather stretched over it and a piece of bamboo is struck

A Hierarchical Flexible Coarsening Method to Combine BBAs in Probabilities

In many applications involving epistemic uncertainties usually modeled by belief functions, it is often necessary to approximate general (non-Bayesian) basic belief assignments (BBAs) to subjective probabilities (called Bayesian BBAs). This necessity occurs if one needs to embed the fusion result in a system based on the probabilistic framework and Bayesian inference (e.g. tracking systems), or if one wants to use classical decision theory to make a decision. There exists already several methods (probabilistic transforms) to approximate any general BBA to a Bayesian BBA