在不同情况下，机器人有可能执行搜索各种应用程序。我们的工作是由人道主义助理和灾难救济（HADR）激发的，在存在冲突的标准，目标和信息的情况下，找到生命的迹象通常至关重要。我们认为，厄运搜索可以提供一个框架来利用可用信息，并为HADR等应用程序探索新信息，尤其是在时间本质上。千古搜索算法规划轨迹，使得在一个地区所花费的时间与该地区的信息量成正比，并且能够自然平衡剥削（近视搜索高信息搜索区域）和探索（访问搜索空间的所有位置以获取新的信息）。现有的Ergodic搜索算法以及其他基于信息的方法通常仅使用单个信息图考虑搜索。但是，在许多情况下，使用多个编码不同类型相关信息的多个信息图很常见。当前的厄运搜索方法没有同时的能力，也不具有平衡信息优先级的方法。这使我们提出了一个多目标的千古搜索（MOES）问题，旨在找到所谓的帕累托最佳解决方案，目的是为人类的决策者提供各种解决方案，这些解决方案在相互矛盾的标准之间进行贸易。为了有效地解决MOE，我们开发了一个称为顺序局部Ergodic搜索（SLE）的框架，该框架将MOES问题转换为“重量空间覆盖率”问题。它利用了厄隆搜索方法的最新进展以及局部优化的想法，以有效地近似帕累托最佳前沿。我们的数值结果表明，SLE的运行速度明显快于基线方法。

We consider the task of text generation in language models with constraints specified in natural language. To this end, we first create a challenging benchmark Cognac that provides as input to the model a topic with example text, along with a constraint on text to be avoided. Unlike prior work, our benchmark contains knowledge-intensive constraints sourced from databases like Wordnet and Wikidata, which allows for straightforward evaluation while striking a balance between broad attribute-level and narrow lexical-level controls. We find that even state-of-the-art language models like GPT-3 fail often on this task, and propose a solution to leverage a language model's own internal knowledge to guide generation. Our method, called CognacGen, first queries the language model to generate guidance terms for a specified topic or constraint, and uses the guidance to modify the model's token generation probabilities. We propose three forms of guidance (binary verifier, top-k tokens, textual example), and employ prefix-tuning approaches to distill the guidance to tackle diverse natural language constraints. Through extensive empirical evaluations, we demonstrate that CognacGen can successfully generalize to unseen instructions and outperform competitive baselines in generating constraint conforming text.

We test grip strength and shock absorption properties of various granular material in granular jamming robotic components. The granular material comprises a range of natural, manufactured, and 3D printed material encompassing a wide range of shapes, sizes, and Shore hardness. Two main experiments are considered, both representing compelling use cases for granular jamming in soft robotics. The first experiment measures grip strength (retention force measured in Newtons) when we fill a latex balloon with the chosen grain type and use it as a granular jamming gripper to pick up a range of test objects. The second experiment measures shock absorption properties recorded by an Inertial Measurement Unit which is suspended in an envelope of granular material and dropped from a set height. Our results highlight a range of shape, size and softness effects, including that grain deformability is a key determinant of grip strength, and interestingly, that larger grain sizes in 3D printed grains create better shock absorbing materials.

Granular jamming has recently become popular in soft robotics with widespread applications including industrial gripping, surgical robotics and haptics. Previous work has investigated the use of various techniques that exploit the nature of granular physics to improve jamming performance, however this is generally underrepresented in the literature compared to its potential impact. We present the first research that exploits vibration-based fluidisation actively (e.g., during a grip) to elicit bespoke performance from granular jamming grippers. We augment a conventional universal gripper with a computer-controllled audio exciter, which is attached to the gripper via a 3D printed mount, and build an automated test rig to allow large-scale data collection to explore the effects of active vibration. We show that vibration in soft jamming grippers can improve holding strength. In a series of studies, we show that frequency and amplitude of the waveforms are key determinants to performance, and that jamming performance is also dependent on temporal properties of the induced waveform. We hope to encourage further study focused on active vibrational control of jamming in soft robotics to improve performance and increase diversity of potential applications.

Fruit harvesting has recently experienced a shift towards soft grippers that possess compliance, adaptability, and delicacy. In this context, pneumatic grippers are popular, due to provision of high deformability and compliance, however they typically possess limited grip strength. Jamming possesses strong grip capability, however has limited deformability and often requires the object to be pushed onto a surface to attain a grip. This paper describes a hybrid gripper combining pneumatics (for deformation) and jamming (for grip strength). Our gripper utilises a torus (donut) structure with two chambers controlled by pneumatic and vacuum pressure respectively, to conform around a target object. The gripper displays good adaptability, exploiting pneumatics to mould to the shape of the target object where jamming can be successfully harnessed to grip. The main contribution of the paper is design, fabrication, and characterisation of the first hybrid gripper that can use granular jamming in free space, achieving significantly larger retention forces compared to pure pneumatics. We test our gripper on a range of different sizes and shapes, as well as picking a broad range of real fruit.

Human operators in human-robot teams are commonly perceived to be critical for mission success. To explore the direct and perceived impact of operator input on task success and team performance, 16 real-world missions (10 hrs) were conducted based on the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. These missions were to deploy a heterogeneous team of robots for a search task to locate and identify artifacts such as climbing rope, drills and mannequins representing human survivors. Two conditions were evaluated: human operators that could control the robot team with state-of-the-art autonomy (Human-Robot Team) compared to autonomous missions without human operator input (Robot-Autonomy). Human-Robot Teams were often in directed autonomy mode (70% of mission time), found more items, traversed more distance, covered more unique ground, and had a higher time between safety-related events. Human-Robot Teams were faster at finding the first artifact, but slower to respond to information from the robot team. In routine conditions, scores were comparable for artifacts, distance, and coverage. Reasons for intervention included creating waypoints to prioritise high-yield areas, and to navigate through error-prone spaces. After observing robot autonomy, operators reported increases in robot competency and trust, but that robot behaviour was not always transparent and understandable, even after high mission performance.

This paper describes important considerations and challenges associated with online reinforcement-learning based waveform selection for target identification in frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) automotive radar systems. We present a novel learning approach based on satisficing Thompson sampling, which quickly identifies a waveform expected to yield satisfactory classification performance. We demonstrate through measurement-level simulations that effective waveform selection strategies can be quickly learned, even in cases where the radar must select from a large catalog of candidate waveforms. The radar learns to adaptively select a bandwidth for appropriate resolution and a slow-time unimodular code for interference mitigation in the scene of interest by optimizing an expected classification metric.

Laser-plasma physics has developed rapidly over the past few decades as lasers have become both more powerful and more widely available. Early experimental and numerical research in this field was dominated by single-shot experiments with limited parameter exploration. However, recent technological improvements make it possible to gather data for hundreds or thousands of different settings in both experiments and simulations. This has sparked interest in using advanced techniques from mathematics, statistics and computer science to deal with, and benefit from, big data. At the same time, sophisticated modeling techniques also provide new ways for researchers to deal effectively with situation where still only sparse data are available. This paper aims to present an overview of relevant machine learning methods with focus on applicability to laser-plasma physics and its important sub-fields of laser-plasma acceleration and inertial confinement fusion.

Artificial intelligence methods including deep neural networks (DNN) can provide rapid molecular classification of tumors from routine histology with accuracy that matches or exceeds human pathologists. Discerning how neural networks make their predictions remains a significant challenge, but explainability tools help provide insights into what models have learned when corresponding histologic features are poorly defined. Here, we present a method for improving explainability of DNN models using synthetic histology generated by a conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN). We show that cGANs generate high-quality synthetic histology images that can be leveraged for explaining DNN models trained to classify molecularly-subtyped tumors, exposing histologic features associated with molecular state. Fine-tuning synthetic histology through class and layer blending illustrates nuanced morphologic differences between tumor subtypes. Finally, we demonstrate the use of synthetic histology for augmenting pathologist-in-training education, showing that these intuitive visualizations can reinforce and improve understanding of histologic manifestations of tumor biology.

个性化联合学习（PFL）是一种新的联邦学习（FL）方法，可解决分布式用户设备（UES）生成的数据集的异质性问题。但是，大多数现有的PFL实现都依赖于同步培训来确保良好的收敛性能，这可能会导致严重的散乱问题，在这种情况下，训练时间大量延长了最慢的UE。为了解决这个问题，我们提出了一种半同步PFL算法，被称为半同步个性化的FederatedAveraging（Perfeds $^2 $），而不是移动边缘网络。通过共同优化无线带宽分配和UE调度策略，它不仅减轻了Straggler问题，而且还提供了收敛的培训损失保证。我们根据每回合的参与者数量和回合数量来得出Perfeds2收敛速率的上限。在此基础上，可以使用分析解决方案解决带宽分配问题，并且可以通过贪婪算法获得UE调度策略。实验结果与同步和异步PFL算法相比，验证了Perfeds2在节省训练时间和保证训练损失的收敛方面的有效性。