在本文中，我们提供了一个实用的证明，即与有限状态机（FSM）相比，行为树（BT）中的模块化如何减少编程机器人任务的努力。近年来，代表控制自治药物的任务计划的方法已从标准FSM转移到BTS。与标准方法相比，文献中的许多作品都强调并证明了这种设计的好处，尤其是在模块化，反应性和人类可读性方面。但是，这些作品通常无法在实施这些政策以及修改它们所需的编程工作中提供切实的比较。这是许多机器人应用中的一个相关方面，在该方面，设计选择是由政策的鲁棒性和对其进行编程所需的时间来决定的。在这项工作中，我们通过评估修改它们的成本来比较向后链的BT和FSM的耐故障设计。我们通过在模拟环境中通过一组实验来验证分析，其中移动操纵器可以解决项目提取任务。

每年在美国犯下数十个恐怖袭击，往往会导致死亡和其他重大损害。在更好地理解和减轻这些攻击的结束时，我们展示了一组机器学习模型，用于从本地化的新闻数据中学习，以预测恐怖主义攻击是否将在给定的日历日期和给定状态上发生。最佳模型 - 一种随机森林，了解特征空间的新型可变长度移动平均表示 - 在接收器经营特征下实现的地区分数为$> .667美元，这是由恐怖主义影响最多的五个州的四个国家在2015年和2018年之间。我们的主要发现包括将恐怖主义建模为一系列独立事件，而不是作为一个持续的过程，是一种富有成果的方法 - 尤其是当事件稀疏和异常时。此外，我们的结果突出了对位置之间的差异的本地化模型的需求。从机器学习的角度来看，我们发现随机森林模型在我们的多模式，嘈杂和不平衡数据集上表现出几种深刻的模型，从而展示了我们的新颖特征表示方法在这种情况下的功效。我们还表明，其预测是对攻击之间的时间差距和观察到攻击特征的预测相对稳健。最后，我们分析了限制模型性能的因素，包括嘈杂的特征空间和少量可用数据。这些贡献为利用机器学习在美国及以后的恐怖主义努力中提供了重要的基础。

照片中的户外场景的照片拟实的编辑需要对图像形成过程的深刻理解和场景几何，反射和照明的准确估计。然后可以在保持场景Albedo和几何形状的同时进行照明的微妙操纵。我们呈现NERF-OSR，即，基于神经辐射场的户外场景复兴的第一种方法。与现有技术相比，我们的技术允许仅使用在不受控制的设置中拍摄的户外照片集合的场景照明和相机视点。此外，它能够直接控制通过球面谐波模型所定义的场景照明。它还包括用于阴影再现的专用网络，这对于高质量的室外场景致密至关重要。为了评估所提出的方法，我们收集了几个户外站点的新基准数据集，其中每个站点从多个视点拍摄和不同的时间。对于每个定时，360度环境映射与颜色校准Chequerboard一起捕获，以允许对实际真实的真实数据进行准确的数值评估。反对本领域的状态的比较表明，NERF-OSR能够以更高的质量和逼真的自阴影再现来实现可控的照明和视点编辑。我们的方法和数据集将在https://4dqv.mpi-inf.mpg.de/nerf-OSR/上公开可用。

Robotic teleoperation is a key technology for a wide variety of applications. It allows sending robots instead of humans in remote, possibly dangerous locations while still using the human brain with its enormous knowledge and creativity, especially for solving unexpected problems. A main challenge in teleoperation consists of providing enough feedback to the human operator for situation awareness and thus create full immersion, as well as offering the operator suitable control interfaces to achieve efficient and robust task fulfillment. We present a bimanual telemanipulation system consisting of an anthropomorphic avatar robot and an operator station providing force and haptic feedback to the human operator. The avatar arms are controlled in Cartesian space with a direct mapping of the operator movements. The measured forces and torques on the avatar side are haptically displayed to the operator. We developed a predictive avatar model for limit avoidance which runs on the operator side, ensuring low latency. The system was successfully evaluated during the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition semifinals. In addition, we performed in lab experiments and carried out a small user study with mostly untrained operators.

The purpose of this work was to tackle practical issues which arise when using a tendon-driven robotic manipulator with a long, passive, flexible proximal section in medical applications. A separable robot which overcomes difficulties in actuation and sterilization is introduced, in which the body containing the electronics is reusable and the remainder is disposable. A control input which resolves the redundancy in the kinematics and a physical interpretation of this redundancy are provided. The effect of a static change in the proximal section angle on bending angle error was explored under four testing conditions for a sinusoidal input. Bending angle error increased for increasing proximal section angle for all testing conditions with an average error reduction of 41.48% for retension, 4.28% for hysteresis, and 52.35% for re-tension + hysteresis compensation relative to the baseline case. Two major sources of error in tracking the bending angle were identified: time delay from hysteresis and DC offset from the proximal section angle. Examination of these error sources revealed that the simple hysteresis compensation was most effective for removing time delay and re-tension compensation for removing DC offset, which was the primary source of increasing error. The re-tension compensation was also tested for dynamic changes in the proximal section and reduced error in the final configuration of the tip by 89.14% relative to the baseline case.

Learning enabled autonomous systems provide increased capabilities compared to traditional systems. However, the complexity of and probabilistic nature in the underlying methods enabling such capabilities present challenges for current systems engineering processes for assurance, and test, evaluation, verification, and validation (TEVV). This paper provides a preliminary attempt to map recently developed technical approaches in the assurance and TEVV of learning enabled autonomous systems (LEAS) literature to a traditional systems engineering v-model. This mapping categorizes such techniques into three main approaches: development, acquisition, and sustainment. We review the latest techniques to develop safe, reliable, and resilient learning enabled autonomous systems, without recommending radical and impractical changes to existing systems engineering processes. By performing this mapping, we seek to assist acquisition professionals by (i) informing comprehensive test and evaluation planning, and (ii) objectively communicating risk to leaders.

In inverse reinforcement learning (IRL), a learning agent infers a reward function encoding the underlying task using demonstrations from experts. However, many existing IRL techniques make the often unrealistic assumption that the agent has access to full information about the environment. We remove this assumption by developing an algorithm for IRL in partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). We address two limitations of existing IRL techniques. First, they require an excessive amount of data due to the information asymmetry between the expert and the learner. Second, most of these IRL techniques require solving the computationally intractable forward problem -- computing an optimal policy given a reward function -- in POMDPs. The developed algorithm reduces the information asymmetry while increasing the data efficiency by incorporating task specifications expressed in temporal logic into IRL. Such specifications may be interpreted as side information available to the learner a priori in addition to the demonstrations. Further, the algorithm avoids a common source of algorithmic complexity by building on causal entropy as the measure of the likelihood of the demonstrations as opposed to entropy. Nevertheless, the resulting problem is nonconvex due to the so-called forward problem. We solve the intrinsic nonconvexity of the forward problem in a scalable manner through a sequential linear programming scheme that guarantees to converge to a locally optimal policy. In a series of examples, including experiments in a high-fidelity Unity simulator, we demonstrate that even with a limited amount of data and POMDPs with tens of thousands of states, our algorithm learns reward functions and policies that satisfy the task while inducing similar behavior to the expert by leveraging the provided side information.

Speech-driven 3D facial animation has been widely explored, with applications in gaming, character animation, virtual reality, and telepresence systems. State-of-the-art methods deform the face topology of the target actor to sync the input audio without considering the identity-specific speaking style and facial idiosyncrasies of the target actor, thus, resulting in unrealistic and inaccurate lip movements. To address this, we present Imitator, a speech-driven facial expression synthesis method, which learns identity-specific details from a short input video and produces novel facial expressions matching the identity-specific speaking style and facial idiosyncrasies of the target actor. Specifically, we train a style-agnostic transformer on a large facial expression dataset which we use as a prior for audio-driven facial expressions. Based on this prior, we optimize for identity-specific speaking style based on a short reference video. To train the prior, we introduce a novel loss function based on detected bilabial consonants to ensure plausible lip closures and consequently improve the realism of the generated expressions. Through detailed experiments and a user study, we show that our approach produces temporally coherent facial expressions from input audio while preserving the speaking style of the target actors.

We study the problem of graph clustering under a broad class of objectives in which the quality of a cluster is defined based on the ratio between the number of edges in the cluster, and the total weight of vertices in the cluster. We show that our definition is closely related to popular clustering measures, namely normalized associations, which is a dual of the normalized cut objective, and normalized modularity. We give a linear time constant-approximate algorithm for our objective, which implies the first constant-factor approximation algorithms for normalized modularity and normalized associations.

Neuromorphic systems require user-friendly software to support the design and optimization of experiments. In this work, we address this need by presenting our development of a machine learning-based modeling framework for the BrainScaleS-2 neuromorphic system. This work represents an improvement over previous efforts, which either focused on the matrix-multiplication mode of BrainScaleS-2 or lacked full automation. Our framework, called hxtorch.snn, enables the hardware-in-the-loop training of spiking neural networks within PyTorch, including support for auto differentiation in a fully-automated hardware experiment workflow. In addition, hxtorch.snn facilitates seamless transitions between emulating on hardware and simulating in software. We demonstrate the capabilities of hxtorch.snn on a classification task using the Yin-Yang dataset employing a gradient-based approach with surrogate gradients and densely sampled membrane observations from the BrainScaleS-2 hardware system.