Publications | Autonomous Motion - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

146 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2016

A New Perspective and Extension of the Gaussian Filter

Wüthrich, M., Trimpe, S., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Kappler, D., Schaal, S.

The International Journal of Robotics Research, 35(14):1731-1749, December 2016 (article)

Abstract

The Gaussian Filter (GF) is one of the most widely used filtering algorithms; instances are the Extended Kalman Filter, the Unscented Kalman Filter and the Divided Difference Filter. The GF represents the belief of the current state by a Gaussian distribution, whose mean is an affine function of the measurement. We show that this representation can be too restrictive to accurately capture the dependences in systems with nonlinear observation models, and we investigate how the GF can be generalized to alleviate this problem. To this end, we view the GF as the solution to a constrained optimization problem. From this new perspective, the GF is seen as a special case of a much broader class of filters, obtained by relaxing the constraint on the form of the approximate posterior. On this basis, we outline some conditions which potential generalizations have to satisfy in order to maintain the computational efficiency of the GF. We propose one concrete generalization which corresponds to the standard GF using a pseudo measurement instead of the actual measurement. Extending an existing GF implementation in this manner is trivial. Nevertheless, we show that this small change can have a major impact on the estimation accuracy.

PDF DOI Project Page [BibTex]

2016

Wüthrich, M., Trimpe, S., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Kappler, D., Schaal, S. A New Perspective and Extension of the Gaussian Filter The International Journal of Robotics Research, 35(14):1731-1749, December 2016 (article)

PDF DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Predictive and Self Triggering for Event-based State Estimation

Trimpe, S.

In Proceedings of the 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), pages: 3098-3105, Las Vegas, NV, USA, December 2016 (inproceedings)

arXiv PDF DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Trimpe, S. Predictive and Self Triggering for Event-based State Estimation In Proceedings of the 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), pages: 3098-3105, Las Vegas, NV, USA, December 2016 (inproceedings)

arXiv PDF DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Using Probabilistic Movement Primitives for Striking Movements

Gomez-Gonzalez, S., Neumann, G., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J.

16th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages: 502-508, November 2016 (conference)

link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Gomez-Gonzalez, S., Neumann, G., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J. Using Probabilistic Movement Primitives for Striking Movements 16th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages: 502-508, November 2016 (conference)

link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Jointly Learning Trajectory Generation and Hitting Point Prediction in Robot Table Tennis

Huang, Y., Büchler, D., Koc, O., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J.

16th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages: 650-655, November 2016 (conference)

final link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Huang, Y., Büchler, D., Koc, O., Schölkopf, B., Peters, J. Jointly Learning Trajectory Generation and Hitting Point Prediction in Robot Table Tennis 16th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages: 650-655, November 2016 (conference)

final link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

The Role of Measurement Uncertainty in Optimal Control for Contact Interactions

Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics, pages: 22, November 2016 (conference)

Abstract

Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC) typically considers noise only in the process model, i.e. unknown disturbances. However, in many robotic applications that involve interaction with the environment, such as locomotion and manipulation, uncertainty also comes from lack of pre- cise knowledge of the world, which is not an actual disturbance. We de- velop a computationally efficient SOC algorithm, based on risk-sensitive control, that takes into account uncertainty in the measurements. We include the dynamics of an observer in such a way that the control law explicitly depends on the current measurement uncertainty. We show that high measurement uncertainty leads to low impedance behaviors, a result in contrast with the effects of process noise variance that creates stiff behaviors. Simulation results on a simple 2D manipulator show that our controller can create better interaction with the environment under uncertain contact locations than traditional SOC approaches.

arXiv [BibTex]

The Role of Measurement Uncertainty in Optimal Control for Contact Interactions Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics, pages: 22, November 2016 (conference)

arXiv [BibTex]

Learning Where to Search Using Visual Attention

Kloss, A., Kappler, D., Lensch, H. P. A., Butz, M. V., Schaal, S., Bohg, J.

Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE, IROS, October 2016 (conference)

Abstract

One of the central tasks for a household robot is searching for specific objects. It does not only require localizing the target object but also identifying promising search locations in the scene if the target is not immediately visible. As computation time and hardware resources are usually limited in robotics, it is desirable to avoid expensive visual processing steps that are exhaustively applied over the entire image. The human visual system can quickly select those image locations that have to be processed in detail for a given task. This allows us to cope with huge amounts of information and to efficiently deploy the limited capacities of our visual system. In this paper, we therefore propose to use human fixation data to train a top-down saliency model that predicts relevant image locations when searching for specific objects. We show that the learned model can successfully prune bounding box proposals without rejecting the ground truth object locations. In this aspect, the proposed model outperforms a model that is trained only on the ground truth segmentations of the target object instead of fixation data.

Project Page [BibTex]

Kloss, A., Kappler, D., Lensch, H. P. A., Butz, M. V., Schaal, S., Bohg, J. Learning Where to Search Using Visual Attention Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE, IROS, October 2016 (conference)

PDF Project Page [BibTex]

Parameter Learning for Improving Binary Descriptor Matching

Sankaran, B., Ramalingam, S., Taguchi, Y.

In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Binary descriptors allow fast detection and matching algorithms in computer vision problems. Though binary descriptors can be computed at almost two orders of magnitude faster than traditional gradient based descriptors, they suffer from poor matching accuracy in challenging conditions. In this paper we propose three improvements for binary descriptors in their computation and matching that enhance their performance in comparison to traditional binary and non-binary descriptors without compromising their speed. This is achieved by learning some weights and threshold parameters that allow customized matching under some variations such as lighting and viewpoint. Our suggested improvements can be easily applied to any binary descriptor. We demonstrate our approach on the ORB (Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF) descriptor and compare its performance with the traditional ORB and SIFT descriptors on a wide variety of datasets. In all instances, our enhancements outperform standard ORB and is comparable to SIFT.

[BibTex]

Sankaran, B., Ramalingam, S., Taguchi, Y. Parameter Learning for Improving Binary Descriptor Matching In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 2016 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

A New Trajectory Generation Framework in Robotic Table Tennis

Koc, O., Maeda, G., Peters, J.

Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 3750-3756, October 2016 (conference)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Koc, O., Maeda, G., Peters, J. A New Trajectory Generation Framework in Robotic Table Tennis Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 3750-3756, October 2016 (conference)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Superpixel Convolutional Networks using Bilateral Inceptions

Gadde, R., Jampani, V., Kiefel, M., Kappler, D., Gehler, P.

In European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 14th European Conference on Computer Vision, October 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper we propose a CNN architecture for semantic image segmentation. We introduce a new “bilateral inception” module that can be inserted in existing CNN architectures and performs bilateral filtering, at multiple feature-scales, between superpixels in an image. The feature spaces for bilateral filtering and other parameters of the module are learned end-to-end using standard backpropagation techniques. The bilateral inception module addresses two issues that arise with general CNN segmentation architectures. First, this module propagates information between (super) pixels while respecting image edges, thus using the structured information of the problem for improved results. Second, the layer recovers a full resolution segmentation result from the lower resolution solution of a CNN. In the experiments, we modify several existing CNN architectures by inserting our inception modules between the last CNN (1 × 1 convolution) layers. Empirical results on three different datasets show reliable improvements not only in comparison to the baseline networks, but also in comparison to several dense-pixel prediction techniques such as CRFs, while being competitive in time.

pdf supplementary poster Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Gadde, R., Jampani, V., Kiefel, M., Kappler, D., Gehler, P. Superpixel Convolutional Networks using Bilateral Inceptions In European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 14th European Conference on Computer Vision, October 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf supplementary poster Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Barrista - Caffe Well-Served

Lassner, C., Kappler, D., Kiefel, M., Gehler, P.

In ACM Multimedia Open Source Software Competition, ACM OSSC16, October 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The caffe framework is one of the leading deep learning toolboxes in the machine learning and computer vision community. While it offers efficiency and configurability, it falls short of a full interface to Python. With increasingly involved procedures for training deep networks and reaching depths of hundreds of layers, creating configuration files and keeping them consistent becomes an error prone process. We introduce the barrista framework, offering full, pythonic control over caffe. It separates responsibilities and offers code to solve frequently occurring tasks for pre-processing, training and model inspection. It is compatible to all caffe versions since mid 2015 and can import and export .prototxt files. Examples are included, e.g., a deep residual network implemented in only 172 lines (for arbitrary depths), comparing to 2320 lines in the official implementation for the equivalent model.

pdf link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Lassner, C., Kappler, D., Kiefel, M., Gehler, P. Barrista - Caffe Well-Served In ACM Multimedia Open Source Software Competition, ACM OSSC16, October 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Interlocking Perception-Action Loops at Multiple Time Scales - A System Proposal for Manipulation in Uncertain and Dynamic Environments

Bohg, J., Kappler, D., Meier, F., Ratliff, N., Mainprice, J., Issac, J., Wüthrich, M., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Berenz, V., Schaal, S.

In International Workshop on Robotics in the 21st century: Challenges and Promises, September 2016 (inproceedings)

Workshop Webpage Extended Abstract Project Page [BibTex]

Bohg, J., Kappler, D., Meier, F., Ratliff, N., Mainprice, J., Issac, J., Wüthrich, M., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Berenz, V., Schaal, S. Interlocking Perception-Action Loops at Multiple Time Scales - A System Proposal for Manipulation in Uncertain and Dynamic Environments In International Workshop on Robotics in the 21st century: Challenges and Promises, September 2016 (inproceedings)

Workshop Webpage Extended Abstract Project Page [BibTex]

DOOMED: Direct Online Optimization of Modeling Errors in Dynamics

Ratliff, N., Meier, F., Kappler, D., Schaal, S.

arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.00309, August 2016 (article)

[BibTex]

Ratliff, N., Meier, F., Kappler, D., Schaal, S. DOOMED: Direct Online Optimization of Modeling Errors in Dynamics arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.00309, August 2016 (article)

[BibTex]

Robust Gaussian Filtering using a Pseudo Measurement

Wüthrich, M., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Trimpe, S., Meier, F., Bohg, J., Issac, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the American Control Conference (ACC), Boston, MA, USA, July 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Most widely-used state estimation algorithms, such as the Extended Kalman Filter and the Unscented Kalman Filter, belong to the family of Gaussian Filters (GF). Unfortunately, GFs fail if the measurement process is modelled by a fat-tailed distribution. This is a severe limitation, because thin-tailed measurement models, such as the analytically-convenient and therefore widely-used Gaussian distribution, are sensitive to outliers. In this paper, we show that mapping the measurements into a specific feature space enables any existing GF algorithm to work with fat-tailed measurement models. We find a feature function which is optimal under certain conditions. Simulation results show that the proposed method allows for robust filtering in both linear and nonlinear systems with measurements contaminated by fat-tailed noise.

Web link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Wüthrich, M., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Trimpe, S., Meier, F., Bohg, J., Issac, J., Schaal, S. Robust Gaussian Filtering using a Pseudo Measurement In Proceedings of the American Control Conference (ACC), Boston, MA, USA, July 2016 (inproceedings)

Web link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Robot Arm Pose Estimation by Pixel-wise Regression of Joint Angles

Widmaier, F., Kappler, D., Schaal, S., Bohg, J.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

To achieve accurate vision-based control with a robotic arm, a good hand-eye coordination is required. However, knowing the current configuration of the arm can be very difficult due to noisy readings from joint encoders or an inaccurate hand-eye calibration. We propose an approach for robot arm pose estimation that uses depth images of the arm as input to directly estimate angular joint positions. This is a frame-by-frame method which does not rely on good initialisation of the solution from the previous frames or knowledge from the joint encoders. For estimation, we employ a random regression forest which is trained on synthetically generated data. We compare different training objectives of the forest and also analyse the influence of prior segmentation of the arms on accuracy. We show that this approach improves previous work both in terms of computational complexity and accuracy. Despite being trained on synthetic data only, we demonstrate that the estimation also works on real depth images.

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Widmaier, F., Kappler, D., Schaal, S., Bohg, J. Robot Arm Pose Estimation by Pixel-wise Regression of Joint Angles In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Optimizing for what matters: the Top Grasp Hypothesis

Kappler, D., Schaal, S., Bohg, J.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the problem of robotic grasping of objects when only partial and noisy sensor data of the environment is available. We are specifically interested in the problem of reliably selecting the best hypothesis from a whole set. This is commonly the case when trying to grasp an object for which we can only observe a partial point cloud from one viewpoint through noisy sensors. There will be many possible ways to successfully grasp this object, and even more which will fail. We propose a supervised learning method that is trained with a ranking loss. This explicitly encourages that the top-ranked training grasp in a hypothesis set is also positively labeled. We show how we adapt the standard ranking loss to work with data that has binary labels and explain the benefits of this formulation. Additionally, we show how we can efficiently optimize this loss with stochastic gradient descent. In quantitative experiments, we show that we can outperform previous models by a large margin.

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Kappler, D., Schaal, S., Bohg, J. Optimizing for what matters: the Top Grasp Hypothesis In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Exemplar-based Prediction of Object Properties from Local Shape Similarity

Bohg, J., Kappler, D., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We propose a novel method that enables a robot to identify a graspable object part of an unknown object given only noisy and partial information that is obtained from an RGB-D camera. Our method combines the benefits of local with the advantages of global methods. It learns a classifier that takes a local shape representation as input and outputs the probability that a grasp applied at this location will be successful. Given a query data point that is classified in this way, we can retrieve all the locally similar training data points and use them to predict latent global object shape. This information may help to further prune positively labeled grasp hypotheses based on, e.g. relation to the predicted average global shape or suitability for a specific task. This prediction can also guide scene exploration to prune object shape hypotheses. To learn the function that maps local shape to grasp stability we use a Random Forest Classifier. We show that our method reaches the same classification performance as the current state-of-the-art on this dataset which uses a Convolutional Neural Network. Additionally, we exploit the natural ability of the Random Forest to cluster similar data. For a positively predicted query data point, we retrieve all the locally similar training data points that are associated with the same leaf nodes of the Random Forest. The main insight from this work is that local object shape that affords a grasp is also a good predictor of global object shape. We empirically support this claim with quantitative experiments. Additionally, we demonstrate the predictive capability of the method on some real data examples.

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Bohg, J., Kappler, D., Schaal, S. Exemplar-based Prediction of Object Properties from Local Shape Similarity In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Automatic LQR Tuning Based on Gaussian Process Global Optimization

Marco, A., Hennig, P., Bohg, J., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 270-277, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

This paper proposes an automatic controller tuning framework based on linear optimal control combined with Bayesian optimization. With this framework, an initial set of controller gains is automatically improved according to a pre-defined performance objective evaluated from experimental data. The underlying Bayesian optimization algorithm is Entropy Search, which represents the latent objective as a Gaussian process and constructs an explicit belief over the location of the objective minimum. This is used to maximize the information gain from each experimental evaluation. Thus, this framework shall yield improved controllers with fewer evaluations compared to alternative approaches. A seven-degree- of-freedom robot arm balancing an inverted pole is used as the experimental demonstrator. Results of a two- and four- dimensional tuning problems highlight the method’s potential for automatic controller tuning on robotic platforms.

Video PDF DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Marco, A., Hennig, P., Bohg, J., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S. Automatic LQR Tuning Based on Gaussian Process Global Optimization In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 270-277, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Video PDF DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Depth-based Object Tracking Using a Robust Gaussian Filter

Issac, J., Wüthrich, M., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Bohg, J., Trimpe, S., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We consider the problem of model-based 3D- tracking of objects given dense depth images as input. Two difficulties preclude the application of a standard Gaussian filter to this problem. First of all, depth sensors are characterized by fat-tailed measurement noise. To address this issue, we show how a recently published robustification method for Gaussian filters can be applied to the problem at hand. Thereby, we avoid using heuristic outlier detection methods that simply reject measurements if they do not match the model. Secondly, the computational cost of the standard Gaussian filter is prohibitive due to the high-dimensional measurement, i.e. the depth image. To address this problem, we propose an approximation to reduce the computational complexity of the filter. In quantitative experiments on real data we show how our method clearly outperforms the standard Gaussian filter. Furthermore, we compare its performance to a particle-filter-based tracking method, and observe comparable computational efficiency and improved accuracy and smoothness of the estimates.

Video Bayesian Object Tracking Library Bayesian Filtering Framework Object Tracking Dataset link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Issac, J., Wüthrich, M., Garcia Cifuentes, C., Bohg, J., Trimpe, S., Schaal, S. Depth-based Object Tracking Using a Robust Gaussian Filter In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

Video Bayesian Object Tracking Library Bayesian Filtering Framework Object Tracking Dataset link (url) DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Implications of Action-Oriented Paradigm Shifts in Cognitive Science

Dominey, P. F., Prescott, T. J., Bohg, J., Engel, A. K., Gallagher, S., Heed, T., Hoffmann, M., Knoblich, G., Prinz, W., Schwartz, A.

In The Pragmatic Turn - Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science, 18, pages: 333-356, 20, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 18, J. Lupp, series editor, (Editors: Andreas K. Engel and Karl J. Friston and Danica Kragic), The MIT Press, 18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum, May 2016 (incollection) In press

Abstract

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and its impact on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g. educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system.

The Pragmatic Turn - Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science 18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum Bibliography Chapter link (url) [BibTex]

Dominey, P. F., Prescott, T. J., Bohg, J., Engel, A. K., Gallagher, S., Heed, T., Hoffmann, M., Knoblich, G., Prinz, W., Schwartz, A. Implications of Action-Oriented Paradigm Shifts in Cognitive Science In The Pragmatic Turn - Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science, 18, pages: 333-356, 20, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 18, J. Lupp, series editor, (Editors: Andreas K. Engel and Karl J. Friston and Danica Kragic), The MIT Press, 18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum, May 2016 (incollection) In press

The Pragmatic Turn - Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science 18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum Bibliography Chapter link (url) [BibTex]

Communication Rate Analysis for Event-based State Estimation

(Best student paper finalist)

Ebner, S., Trimpe, S.

In Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems, May 2016 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Ebner, S., Trimpe, S. Communication Rate Analysis for Event-based State Estimation In Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems, May 2016 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

A Lightweight Robotic Arm with Pneumatic Muscles for Robot Learning

Büchler, D., Ott, H., Peters, J.

Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 4086-4092, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (conference)

ICRA16final DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Büchler, D., Ott, H., Peters, J. A Lightweight Robotic Arm with Pneumatic Muscles for Robot Learning Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 4086-4092, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (conference)

ICRA16final DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Drifting Gaussian Processes with Varying Neighborhood Sizes for Online Model Learning

Meier, F., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Meier, F., Schaal, S. Drifting Gaussian Processes with Varying Neighborhood Sizes for Online Model Learning In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2016, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2016 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Learning Action-Perception Cycles in Robotics: A Question of Representations and Embodiment

Bohg, J., Kragic, D.

In The Pragmatic Turn - Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science, 18, pages: 309-320, 18, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 18, J. Lupp, series editor, (Editors: Andreas K. Engel and Karl J. Friston and Danica Kragic), The MIT Press, 18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum, May 2016 (incollection) In press

Abstract

Since the 1950s, robotics research has sought to build a general-purpose agent capable of autonomous, open-ended interaction with realistic, unconstrained environments. Cognition is perceived to be at the core of this process, yet understanding has been challenged because cognition is referred to differently within and across research areas, and is not clearly defined. The classic robotics approach is decomposition into functional modules which perform planning, reasoning, and problem-solving or provide input to these mechanisms. Although advancements have been made and numerous success stories reported in specific niches, this systems-engineering approach has not succeeded in building such a cognitive agent. The emergence of an action-oriented paradigm offers a new approach: action and perception are no longer separable into functional modules but must be considered in a complete loop. This chapter reviews work on different mechanisms for action- perception learning and discusses the role of embodiment in the design of the underlying representations and learning. It discusses the evaluation of agents and suggests the development of a new embodied Turing Test. Appropriate scenarios need to be devised in addition to current competitions, so that abilities can be tested over long time periods.

18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum The Pragmatic Turn- Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science Bibliography Chapter link (url) [BibTex]

Bohg, J., Kragic, D. Learning Action-Perception Cycles in Robotics: A Question of Representations and Embodiment In The Pragmatic Turn - Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science, 18, pages: 309-320, 18, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 18, J. Lupp, series editor, (Editors: Andreas K. Engel and Karl J. Friston and Danica Kragic), The MIT Press, 18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum, May 2016 (incollection) In press

18th Ernst Strüngmann Forum The Pragmatic Turn- Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science Bibliography Chapter link (url) [BibTex]

Distinct adaptation to abrupt and gradual torque perturbations with a multi-joint exoskeleton robot

Oh, Y., Sutanto, G., Mistry, M., Schweighofer, N., Schaal, S.

Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2016), Montego Bay, Jamaica, April 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

Oh, Y., Sutanto, G., Mistry, M., Schweighofer, N., Schaal, S. Distinct adaptation to abrupt and gradual torque perturbations with a multi-joint exoskeleton robot Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2016), Montego Bay, Jamaica, April 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

Supplemental material for ’Communication Rate Analysis for Event-based State Estimation’

Ebner, S., Trimpe, S.

Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, January 2016 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

Ebner, S., Trimpe, S. Supplemental material for ’Communication Rate Analysis for Event-based State Estimation’ Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, January 2016 (techreport)

PDF [BibTex]

Probabilistic Inference for Determining Options in Reinforcement Learning

Daniel, C., van Hoof, H., Peters, J., Neumann, G.

Machine Learning, Special Issue, 104(2):337-357, (Editors: Gärtner, T., Nanni, M., Passerini, A. and Robardet, C.), European Conference on Machine Learning im Machine Learning, Journal Track, 2016, Best Student Paper Award of ECML-PKDD 2016 (article)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Daniel, C., van Hoof, H., Peters, J., Neumann, G. Probabilistic Inference for Determining Options in Reinforcement Learning Machine Learning, Special Issue, 104(2):337-357, (Editors: Gärtner, T., Nanni, M., Passerini, A. and Robardet, C.), European Conference on Machine Learning im Machine Learning, Journal Track, 2016, Best Student Paper Award of ECML-PKDD 2016 (article)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Ensuring Ethical Behavior from Autonomous Systems

Anderson, M., Anderson, S. L., Berenz, V.

In Artificial Intelligence Applied to Assistive Technologies and Smart Environments, Papers from the 2016 AAAI Workshop, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, February 12, 2016, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Anderson, M., Anderson, S. L., Berenz, V. Ensuring Ethical Behavior from Autonomous Systems In Artificial Intelligence Applied to Assistive Technologies and Smart Environments, Papers from the 2016 AAAI Workshop, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, February 12, 2016, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Towards Robust Online Inverse Dynamics Learning

Meier, F., Kappler, D., Ratliff, N., Schaal, S.

Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE, IROS, 2016 (conference) Accepted

fmeier_iros_2016 [BibTex]

Meier, F., Kappler, D., Ratliff, N., Schaal, S. Towards Robust Online Inverse Dynamics Learning Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE, IROS, 2016 (conference) Accepted

fmeier_iros_2016 [BibTex]

Self-Supervised Regrasping using Spatio-Temporal Tactile Features and Reinforcement Learning

Chebotar, Y., Hausman, K., Su, Z., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S.

In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

Chebotar, Y., Hausman, K., Su, Z., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S. Self-Supervised Regrasping using Spatio-Temporal Tactile Features and Reinforcement Learning In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

Modeling Variability of Musculoskeletal Systems with Heteroscedastic Gaussian Processes

Büchler, D., Calandra, R., Peters, J.

Workshop on Neurorobotics, Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2016 (conference)

NIPS16Neurorobotics [BibTex]

Büchler, D., Calandra, R., Peters, J. Modeling Variability of Musculoskeletal Systems with Heteroscedastic Gaussian Processes Workshop on Neurorobotics, Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2016 (conference)

NIPS16Neurorobotics [BibTex]

Locally Weighted Regression for Control

Ting, J., Meier, F., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In Encyclopedia of Machine Learning and Data Mining, pages: 1-14, Springer US, Boston, MA, 2016 (inbook)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Ting, J., Meier, F., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Locally Weighted Regression for Control In Encyclopedia of Machine Learning and Data Mining, pages: 1-14, Springer US, Boston, MA, 2016 (inbook)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Event-based Sampling for Reducing Communication Load in Realtime Human Motion Analysis by Wireless Inertial Sensor Networks

Laidig, D., Trimpe, S., Seel, T.

Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering, 2(1):711-714, De Gruyter, 2016 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Laidig, D., Trimpe, S., Seel, T. Event-based Sampling for Reducing Communication Load in Realtime Human Motion Analysis by Wireless Inertial Sensor Networks Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering, 2(1):711-714, De Gruyter, 2016 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Generalizing Regrasping with Supervised Policy Learning

Chebotar, Y., Hausman, K., Kroemer, O., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S.

In International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) 2016, International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

Chebotar, Y., Hausman, K., Kroemer, O., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S. Generalizing Regrasping with Supervised Policy Learning In International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) 2016, International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, 2016 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

A Convex Model of Momentum Dynamics for Multi-Contact Motion Generation

Ponton, B., Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

In 2016 IEEE-RAS 16th International Conference on Humanoid Robots Humanoids, pages: 842-849, IEEE, Cancun, Mexico, 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Linear models for control and motion generation of humanoid robots have received significant attention in the past years, not only due to their well known theoretical guarantees, but also because of practical computational advantages. However, to tackle more challenging tasks and scenarios such as locomotion on uneven terrain, a more expressive model is required. In this paper, we are interested in contact interaction-centered motion optimization based on the momentum dynamics model. This model is non-linear and non-convex; however, we find a relaxation of the problem that allows us to formulate it as a single convex quadratically-constrained quadratic program (QCQP) that can be very efficiently optimized and is useful for multi-contact planning. This convex model is then coupled to the optimization of end-effector contact locations using a mixed integer program, which can also be efficiently solved. This becomes relevant e.g. to recover from external pushes, where a predefined stepping plan is likely to fail and an online adaptation of the contact location is needed. The performance of our algorithm is demonstrated in several multi-contact scenarios for a humanoid robot.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Ponton, B., Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. A Convex Model of Momentum Dynamics for Multi-Contact Motion Generation In 2016 IEEE-RAS 16th International Conference on Humanoid Robots Humanoids, pages: 842-849, IEEE, Cancun, Mexico, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

On the Effects of Measurement Uncertainty in Optimal Control of Contact Interactions

Ponton, B., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

In The 12th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics WAFR, Berkeley, USA, 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC) typically considers noise only in the process model, i.e. unknown disturbances. However, in many robotic applications involving interaction with the environment, such as locomotion and manipulation, uncertainty also comes from lack of precise knowledge of the world, which is not an actual disturbance. We analyze the effects of also considering noise in the measurement model, by devel- oping a SOC algorithm based on risk-sensitive control, that includes the dynamics of an observer in such a way that the control law explicitly de- pends on the current measurement uncertainty. In simulation results on a simple 2D manipulator, we have observed that measurement uncertainty leads to low impedance behaviors, a result in contrast with the effects of process noise that creates stiff behaviors. This suggests that taking into account measurement uncertainty could be a potentially very interesting way to approach problems involving uncertain contact interactions.

link (url) [BibTex]

Ponton, B., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. On the Effects of Measurement Uncertainty in Optimal Control of Contact Interactions In The 12th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics WAFR, Berkeley, USA, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Momentum Control with Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics on a Torque-Controlled Humanoid

Herzog, A., Rotella, N., Mason, S., Grimminger, F., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

Autonomous Robots, 40(3):473-491, 2016 (article)

Abstract

Hierarchical inverse dynamics based on cascades of quadratic programs have been proposed for the control of legged robots. They have important benefits but to the best of our knowledge have never been implemented on a torque controlled humanoid where model inaccuracies, sensor noise and real-time computation requirements can be problematic. Using a reformulation of existing algorithms, we propose a simplification of the problem that allows to achieve real-time control. Momentum-based control is integrated in the task hierarchy and a LQR design approach is used to compute the desired associated closed-loop behavior and improve performance. Extensive experiments on various balancing and tracking tasks show very robust performance in the face of unknown disturbances, even when the humanoid is standing on one foot. Our results demonstrate that hierarchical inverse dynamics together with momentum control can be efficiently used for feedback control under real robot conditions.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Herzog, A., Rotella, N., Mason, S., Grimminger, F., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. Momentum Control with Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics on a Torque-Controlled Humanoid Autonomous Robots, 40(3):473-491, 2016 (article)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Inertial Sensor-Based Humanoid Joint State Estimation

Rotella, N., Mason, S., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 1825-1831, IEEE, Stockholm, Sweden, 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

This work presents methods for the determination of a humanoid robot's joint velocities and accelerations directly from link-mounted Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) each containing a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer. No information about the global pose of the floating base or its links is required and precise knowledge of the link IMU poses is not necessary due to presented calibration routines. Additionally, a filter is introduced to fuse gyroscope angular velocities with joint position measurements and compensate the computed joint velocities for time-varying gyroscope biases. The resulting joint velocities are subject to less noise and delay than filtered velocities computed from numerical differentiation of joint potentiometer signals, leading to superior performance in joint feedback control as demonstrated in experiments performed on a SARCOS hydraulic humanoid.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Rotella, N., Mason, S., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. Inertial Sensor-Based Humanoid Joint State Estimation In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 1825-1831, IEEE, Stockholm, Sweden, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Stepping Stabilization Using a Combination of DCM Tracking and Step Adjustment

Khadiv, M., Kleff, S., Herzog, A., Moosavian, S. A. A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

In 2016 4th International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICROM), pages: 130-135, IEEE, Teheran, Iran, 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper, a method for stabilizing biped robots stepping by a combination of Divergent Component of Motion (DCM) tracking and step adjustment is proposed. In this method, the DCM trajectory is generated, consistent with the predefined footprints. Furthermore, a swing foot trajectory modification strategy is proposed to adapt the landing point, using DCM measurement. In order to apply the generated trajectories to the full robot, a Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics (HID) is employed. The HID enables us to use different combinations of the DCM tracking and step adjustment for stabilizing different biped robots. Simulation experiments on two scenarios for two different simulated robots, one with active ankles and the other with passive ankles, are carried out. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for robots with both active and passive ankles.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Khadiv, M., Kleff, S., Herzog, A., Moosavian, S. A. A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. Stepping Stabilization Using a Combination of DCM Tracking and Step Adjustment In 2016 4th International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICROM), pages: 130-135, IEEE, Teheran, Iran, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Bioinspired Motor Control for Articulated Robots [From the Guest Editors]

Vitiello, Nicola, Ijspeert, Auke J, Schaal, S.

IEEE Robotics {\&} Automation Magazine, 23(1):20-21, 2016 (article)

[BibTex]

Vitiello, Nicola, Ijspeert, Auke J, Schaal, S. Bioinspired Motor Control for Articulated Robots [From the Guest Editors] IEEE Robotics {\&} Automation Magazine, 23(1):20-21, 2016 (article)

[BibTex]

Structured contact force optimization for kino-dynamic motion generation

Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

In 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 2703-2710, IEEE, Daejeon, South Korea, 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Optimal control approaches in combination with trajectory optimization have recently proven to be a promising control strategy for legged robots. Computationally efficient and robust algorithms were derived using simplified models of the contact interaction between robot and environment such as the linear inverted pendulum model (LIPM). However, as humanoid robots enter more complex environments, less restrictive models become increasingly important. As we leave the regime of linear models, we need to build dedicated solvers that can compute interaction forces together with consistent kinematic plans for the whole-body. In this paper, we address the problem of planning robot motion and interaction forces for legged robots given predefined contact surfaces. The motion generation process is decomposed into two alternating parts computing force and motion plans in coherence. We focus on the properties of the momentum computation leading to sparse optimal control formulations to be exploited by a dedicated solver. In our experiments, we demonstrate that our motion generation algorithm computes consistent contact forces and joint trajectories for our humanoid robot. We also demonstrate the favorable time complexity due to our formulation and composition of the momentum equations.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. Structured contact force optimization for kino-dynamic motion generation In 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 2703-2710, IEEE, Daejeon, South Korea, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Balancing and Walking Using Full Dynamics LQR Control With Contact Constraints

Mason, S., Rotella, N., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.

In 2016 IEEE-RAS 16th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages: 63-68, IEEE, Cancun, Mexico, 2016 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Torque control algorithms which consider robot dynamics and contact constraints are important for creating dynamic behaviors for humanoids. As computational power increases, algorithms tend to also increase in complexity. However, it is not clear how much complexity is really required to create controllers which exhibit good performance. In this paper, we study the capabilities of a simple approach based on contact consistent LQR controllers designed around key poses to control various tasks on a humanoid robot. We present extensive experimental results on a hydraulic, torque controlled humanoid performing balancing and stepping tasks. This feedback control approach captures the necessary synergies between the DoFs of the robot to guarantee good control performance. We show that for the considered tasks, it is only necessary to re-linearize the dynamics of the robot at different contact configurations and that increasing the number of LQR controllers along desired trajectories does not improve performance. Our result suggest that very simple controllers can yield good performance competitive with current state of the art, but more complex, optimization-based whole-body controllers. A video of the experiments can be found at https://youtu.be/5T08CNKV1hw.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Mason, S., Rotella, N., Schaal, S., Righetti, L. Balancing and Walking Using Full Dynamics LQR Control With Contact Constraints In 2016 IEEE-RAS 16th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages: 63-68, IEEE, Cancun, Mexico, 2016 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

2013

Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera

Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We address the problem of tracking the 6-DoF pose of an object while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot. We use a dynamic Bayesian network to perform inference and compute a posterior distribution over the current object pose. Depending on whether a robot or a human manipulates the object, we employ a process model with or without knowledge of control inputs. Observations are obtained from a range camera. As opposed to previous object tracking methods, we explicitly model self-occlusions and occlusions from the environment, e.g, the human or robotic hand. This leads to a strongly non-linear observation model and additional dependencies in the Bayesian network. We employ a Rao-Blackwellised particle filter to compute an estimate of the object pose at every time step. In a set of experiments, we demonstrate the ability of our method to accurately and robustly track the object pose in real-time while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot.

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

2013

Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S. Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

3-D Object Reconstruction of Symmetric Objects by Fusing Visual and Tactile Sensing

Illonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V.

The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(2):321-341, Sage, October 2013 (article)

Abstract

In this work, we propose to reconstruct a complete 3-D model of an unknown object by fusion of visual and tactile information while the object is grasped. Assuming the object is symmetric, a first hypothesis of its complete 3-D shape is generated. A grasp is executed on the object with a robotic manipulator equipped with tactile sensors. Given the detected contacts between the fingers and the object, the initial full object model including the symmetry parameters can be refined. This refined model will then allow the planning of more complex manipulation tasks. The main contribution of this work is an optimal estimation approach for the fusion of visual and tactile data applying the constraint of object symmetry. The fusion is formulated as a state estimation problem and solved with an iterative extended Kalman filter. The approach is validated experimentally using both artificial and real data from two different robotic platforms.

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Illonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V. 3-D Object Reconstruction of Symmetric Objects by Fusing Visual and Tactile Sensing The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(2):321-341, Sage, October 2013 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Learning and Optimization with Submodular Functions

Sankaran, B., Ghazvininejad, M., He, X., Kale, D., Cohen, L.

ArXiv, May 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

In many naturally occurring optimization problems one needs to ensure that the definition of the optimization problem lends itself to solutions that are tractable to compute. In cases where exact solutions cannot be computed tractably, it is beneficial to have strong guarantees on the tractable approximate solutions. In order operate under these criterion most optimization problems are cast under the umbrella of convexity or submodularity. In this report we will study design and optimization over a common class of functions called submodular functions. Set functions, and specifically submodular set functions, characterize a wide variety of naturally occurring optimization problems, and the property of submodularity of set functions has deep theoretical consequences with wide ranging applications. Informally, the property of submodularity of set functions concerns the intuitive principle of diminishing returns. This property states that adding an element to a smaller set has more value than adding it to a larger set. Common examples of submodular monotone functions are entropies, concave functions of cardinality, and matroid rank functions; non-monotone examples include graph cuts, network flows, and mutual information. In this paper we will review the formal definition of submodularity; the optimization of submodular functions, both maximization and minimization; and finally discuss some applications in relation to learning and reasoning using submodular functions.

arxiv link (url) [BibTex]

Sankaran, B., Ghazvininejad, M., He, X., Kale, D., Cohen, L. Learning and Optimization with Submodular Functions ArXiv, May 2013 (techreport)

arxiv link (url) [BibTex]

Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection

Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

One of the central problems in computer vision is the detection of semantically important objects and the estimation of their pose. Most of the work in object detection has been based on single image processing and its performance is limited by occlusions and ambiguity in appearance and geometry. This paper proposes an active approach to object detection by controlling the point of view of a mobile depth camera. When an initial static detection phase identifies an object of interest, several hypotheses are made about its class and orientation. The sensor then plans a sequence of view-points, which balances the amount of energy used to move with the chance of identifying the correct hypothesis. We formulate an active M-ary hypothesis testing problem, which includes sensor mobility, and solve it using a point-based approximate POMDP algorithm. The validity of our approach is verified through simulation and experiments with real scenes captured by a kinect sensor. The results suggest a significant improvement over static object detection.

pdf [BibTex]

Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K. Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Action and Goal Related Decision Variables Modulate the Competition Between Multiple Potential Targets

Enachescu, V, Christopoulos, Vassilios N, Schrater, P. R., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2013), February 2013 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Enachescu, V, Christopoulos, Vassilios N, Schrater, P. R., Schaal, S. Action and Goal Related Decision Variables Modulate the Competition Between Multiple Potential Targets In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2013), February 2013 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Optimal control of reaching includes kinematic constraints

Mistry, M., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S., Kawato, M.

Journal of Neurophysiology, 2013, clmc (article)

Abstract

We investigate adaptation under a reaching task with an acceleration-based force field perturbation designed to alter the nominal straight hand trajectory in a potentially benign manner:pushing the hand of course in one direction before subsequently restoring towards the target. In this particular task, an explicit strategy to reduce motor effort requires a distinct deviation from the nominal rectilinear hand trajectory. Rather, our results display a clear directional preference during learning, as subjects adapted perturbed curved trajectories towards their initial baselines. We model this behavior using the framework of stochastic optimal control theory and an objective function that trades-of the discordant requirements of 1) target accuracy, 2) motor effort, and 3) desired trajectory. Our work addresses the underlying objective of a reaching movement, and we suggest that robustness, particularly against internal model uncertainly, is as essential to the reaching task as terminal accuracy and energy effciency.

PDF [BibTex]

Mistry, M., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S., Kawato, M. Optimal control of reaching includes kinematic constraints Journal of Neurophysiology, 2013, clmc (article)

PDF [BibTex]

Fusing visual and tactile sensing for 3-D object reconstruction while grasping

Ilonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 3547-3554, 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this work, we propose to reconstruct a complete 3-D model of an unknown object by fusion of visual and tactile information while the object is grasped. Assuming the object is symmetric, a first hypothesis of its complete 3-D shape is generated from a single view. This initial model is used to plan a grasp on the object which is then executed with a robotic manipulator equipped with tactile sensors. Given the detected contacts between the fingers and the object, the full object model including the symmetry parameters can be refined. This refined model will then allow the planning of more complex manipulation tasks. The main contribution of this work is an optimal estimation approach for the fusion of visual and tactile data applying the constraint of object symmetry. The fusion is formulated as a state estimation problem and solved with an iterative extended Kalman filter. The approach is validated experimentally using both artificial and real data from two different robotic platforms.

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Ilonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V. Fusing visual and tactile sensing for 3-D object reconstruction while grasping In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 3547-3554, 2013 (inproceedings)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Dynamical Movement Primitives: Learning Attractor Models for Motor Behaviors

Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Pastor, P., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

Neural Computation, (25):328-373, 2013, clmc (article)

Abstract

Nonlinear dynamical systems have been used in many disciplines to model complex behaviors, including biological motor control, robotics, perception, economics, traffic prediction, and neuroscience. While often the unexpected emergent behavior of nonlinear systems is the focus of investigations, it is of equal importance to create goal-directed behavior (e.g., stable locomotion from a system of coupled oscillators under perceptual guidance). Modeling goal-directed behavior with nonlinear systems is, however, rather difficult due to the parameter sensitivity of these systems, their complex phase transitions in response to subtle parameter changes, and the difficulty of analyzing and predicting their long-term behavior; intuition and time-consuming parameter tuning play a major role. This letter presents and reviews dynamical movement primitives, a line of research for modeling attractor behaviors of autonomous nonlinear dynamical systems with the help of statistical learning techniques. The essence of our approach is to start with a simple dynamical system, such as a set of linear differential equations, and transform those into a weakly nonlinear system with prescribed attractor dynamics by meansof a learnable autonomous forcing term. Both point attractors and limit cycle attractors of almost arbitrary complexity can be generated. We explain the design principle of our approach and evaluate its properties in several example applications in motor control and robotics.

link (url) [BibTex]

Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Pastor, P., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Dynamical Movement Primitives: Learning Attractor Models for Motor Behaviors Neural Computation, (25):328-373, 2013, clmc (article)

link (url) [BibTex]

Learning Objective Functions for Manipulation

Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.

In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We present an approach to learning objective functions for robotic manipulation based on inverse reinforcement learning. Our path integral inverse reinforcement learning algorithm can deal with high-dimensional continuous state-action spaces, and only requires local optimality of demonstrated trajectories. We use L 1 regularization in order to achieve feature selection, and propose an efficient algorithm to minimize the resulting convex objective function. We demonstrate our approach by applying it to two core problems in robotic manipulation. First, we learn a cost function for redundancy resolution in inverse kinematics. Second, we use our method to learn a cost function over trajectories, which is then used in optimization-based motion planning for grasping and manipulation tasks. Experimental results show that our method outperforms previous algorithms in high-dimensional settings.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Schaal, S. Learning Objective Functions for Manipulation In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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