Matching Items (18)
Filtering by

Clear all filters

156044-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
In a collaborative environment where multiple robots and human beings are expected

to collaborate to perform a task, it becomes essential for a robot to be aware of multiple

agents working in its work environment. A robot must also learn to adapt to

different agents in the workspace and conduct its interaction based

In a collaborative environment where multiple robots and human beings are expected

to collaborate to perform a task, it becomes essential for a robot to be aware of multiple

agents working in its work environment. A robot must also learn to adapt to

different agents in the workspace and conduct its interaction based on the presence

of these agents. A theoretical framework was introduced which performs interaction

learning from demonstrations in a two-agent work environment, and it is called

Interaction Primitives.

This document is an in-depth description of the new state of the art Python

Framework for Interaction Primitives between two agents in a single as well as multiple

task work environment and extension of the original framework in a work environment

with multiple agents doing a single task. The original theory of Interaction

Primitives has been extended to create a framework which will capture correlation

between more than two agents while performing a single task. The new state of the

art Python framework is an intuitive, generic, easy to install and easy to use python

library which can be applied to use the Interaction Primitives framework in a work

environment. This library was tested in simulated environments and controlled laboratory

environment. The results and benchmarks of this library are available in the

related sections of this document.
ContributorsKumar, Ashish, M.S (Author) / Amor, Hani Ben (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Yu (Committee member) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
133397-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Students learn in various ways \u2014 visualization, auditory, memorizing, or making analogies. Traditional lecturing in engineering courses and the learning styles of engineering students are inharmonious causing students to be at a disadvantage based on their learning style (Felder & Silverman, 1988). My study analyzes the traditional approach to learning

Students learn in various ways \u2014 visualization, auditory, memorizing, or making analogies. Traditional lecturing in engineering courses and the learning styles of engineering students are inharmonious causing students to be at a disadvantage based on their learning style (Felder & Silverman, 1988). My study analyzes the traditional approach to learning coding skills which is unnatural to engineering students with no previous exposure and examining if visual learning enhances introductory computer science education. Visual and text-based learning are evaluated to determine how students learn introductory coding skills and associated problem solving skills. My study was conducted to observe how the two types of learning aid the students in learning how to problem solve as well as how much knowledge can be obtained in a short period of time. The application used for visual learning was Scratch and Repl.it was used for text-based learning. Two exams were made to measure the progress made by each student. The topics covered by the exam were initialization, variable reassignment, output, if statements, if else statements, nested if statements, logical operators, arrays/lists, while loop, type casting, functions, object orientation, and sorting. Analysis of the data collected in the study allow us to observe whether the traditional method of teaching programming or block-based programming is more beneficial and in what topics of introductory computer science concepts.
ContributorsVidaure, Destiny Vanessa (Author) / Meuth, Ryan (Thesis director) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
155378-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
To ensure system integrity, robots need to proactively avoid any unwanted physical perturbation that may cause damage to the underlying hardware. In this thesis work, we investigate a machine learning approach that allows robots to anticipate impending physical perturbations from perceptual cues. In contrast to other approaches that require knowledge

To ensure system integrity, robots need to proactively avoid any unwanted physical perturbation that may cause damage to the underlying hardware. In this thesis work, we investigate a machine learning approach that allows robots to anticipate impending physical perturbations from perceptual cues. In contrast to other approaches that require knowledge about sources of perturbation to be encoded before deployment, our method is based on experiential learning. Robots learn to associate visual cues with subsequent physical perturbations and contacts. In turn, these extracted visual cues are then used to predict potential future perturbations acting on the robot. To this end, we introduce a novel deep network architecture which combines multiple sub- networks for dealing with robot dynamics and perceptual input from the environment. We present a self-supervised approach for training the system that does not require any labeling of training data. Extensive experiments in a human-robot interaction task show that a robot can learn to predict physical contact by a human interaction partner without any prior information or labeling. Furthermore, the network is able to successfully predict physical contact from either depth stream input or traditional video input or using both modalities as input.
ContributorsSur, Indranil (Author) / Amor, Heni B (Thesis advisor) / Fainekos, Georgios (Committee member) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
155401-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
This work presents a communication paradigm, using a context-aware mixed reality approach, for instructing human workers when collaborating with robots. The main objective of this approach is to utilize the physical work environment as a canvas to communicate task-related instructions and robot intentions in the form of visual cues. A

This work presents a communication paradigm, using a context-aware mixed reality approach, for instructing human workers when collaborating with robots. The main objective of this approach is to utilize the physical work environment as a canvas to communicate task-related instructions and robot intentions in the form of visual cues. A vision-based object tracking algorithm is used to precisely determine the pose and state of physical objects in and around the workspace. A projection mapping technique is used to overlay visual cues on tracked objects and the workspace. Simultaneous tracking and projection onto objects enables the system to provide just-in-time instructions for carrying out a procedural task. Additionally, the system can also inform and warn humans about the intentions of the robot and safety of the workspace. It was hypothesized that using this system for executing a human-robot collaborative task will improve the overall performance of the team and provide a positive experience to the human partner. To test this hypothesis, an experiment involving human subjects was conducted and the performance (both objective and subjective) of the presented system was compared with a conventional method based on printed instructions. It was found that projecting visual cues enabled human subjects to collaborate more effectively with the robot and resulted in higher efficiency in completing the task.
ContributorsKalpagam Ganesan, Ramsundar (Author) / Ben Amor, Hani (Thesis advisor) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Zhang, Yu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
155809-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Light field imaging is limited in its computational processing demands of high

sampling for both spatial and angular dimensions. Single-shot light field cameras

sacrifice spatial resolution to sample angular viewpoints, typically by multiplexing

incoming rays onto a 2D sensor array. While this resolution can be recovered using

compressive sensing, these iterative solutions are slow

Light field imaging is limited in its computational processing demands of high

sampling for both spatial and angular dimensions. Single-shot light field cameras

sacrifice spatial resolution to sample angular viewpoints, typically by multiplexing

incoming rays onto a 2D sensor array. While this resolution can be recovered using

compressive sensing, these iterative solutions are slow in processing a light field. We

present a deep learning approach using a new, two branch network architecture,

consisting jointly of an autoencoder and a 4D CNN, to recover a high resolution

4D light field from a single coded 2D image. This network decreases reconstruction

time significantly while achieving average PSNR values of 26-32 dB on a variety of

light fields. In particular, reconstruction time is decreased from 35 minutes to 6.7

minutes as compared to the dictionary method for equivalent visual quality. These

reconstructions are performed at small sampling/compression ratios as low as 8%,

allowing for cheaper coded light field cameras. We test our network reconstructions

on synthetic light fields, simulated coded measurements of real light fields captured

from a Lytro Illum camera, and real coded images from a custom CMOS diffractive

light field camera. The combination of compressive light field capture with deep

learning allows the potential for real-time light field video acquisition systems in the

future.
ContributorsGupta, Mayank (Author) / Turaga, Pavan (Thesis advisor) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Li, Baoxin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
168714-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Deep neural network-based methods have been proved to achieve outstanding performance on object detection and classification tasks. Deep neural networks follow the ``deeper model with deeper confidence'' belief to gain a higher recognition accuracy. However, reducing these networks' computational costs remains a challenge, which impedes their deployment on embedded devices.

Deep neural network-based methods have been proved to achieve outstanding performance on object detection and classification tasks. Deep neural networks follow the ``deeper model with deeper confidence'' belief to gain a higher recognition accuracy. However, reducing these networks' computational costs remains a challenge, which impedes their deployment on embedded devices. For instance, the intersection management of Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) requires running computationally intensive object recognition algorithms on low-power traffic cameras. This dissertation aims to study the effect of a dynamic hardware and software approach to address this issue. Characteristics of real-world applications can facilitate this dynamic adjustment and reduce the computation. Specifically, this dissertation starts with a dynamic hardware approach that adjusts itself based on the toughness of input and extracts deeper features if needed. Next, an adaptive learning mechanism has been studied that use extracted feature from previous inputs to improve system performance. Finally, a system (ARGOS) was proposed and evaluated that can be run on embedded systems while maintaining the desired accuracy. This system adopts shallow features at inference time, but it can switch to deep features if the system desires a higher accuracy. To improve the performance, ARGOS distills the temporal knowledge from deep features to the shallow system. Moreover, ARGOS reduces the computation furthermore by focusing on regions of interest. The response time and mean average precision are adopted for the performance evaluation to evaluate the proposed ARGOS system.
ContributorsFarhadi, Mohammad (Author) / Yang, Yezhou (Thesis advisor) / Vrudhula, Sarma (Committee member) / Wu, Carole-Jean (Committee member) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
168406-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Enabling robots to physically engage with their environment in a safe and efficient manner is an essential step towards human-robot interaction. To date, robots usually operate as pre-programmed workers that blindly execute tasks in highly structured environments crafted by skilled engineers. Changing the robots’ behavior to cover new duties or

Enabling robots to physically engage with their environment in a safe and efficient manner is an essential step towards human-robot interaction. To date, robots usually operate as pre-programmed workers that blindly execute tasks in highly structured environments crafted by skilled engineers. Changing the robots’ behavior to cover new duties or handle variability is an expensive, complex, and time-consuming process. However, with the advent of more complex sensors and algorithms, overcoming these limitations becomes within reach. This work proposes innovations in artificial intelligence, language understanding, and multimodal integration to enable next-generation grasping and manipulation capabilities in autonomous robots. The underlying thesis is that multimodal observations and instructions can drastically expand the responsiveness and dexterity of robot manipulators. Natural language, in particular, can be used to enable intuitive, bidirectional communication between a human user and the machine. To this end, this work presents a system that learns context-aware robot control policies from multimodal human demonstrations. Among the main contributions presented are techniques for (a) collecting demonstrations in an efficient and intuitive fashion, (b) methods for leveraging physical contact with the environment and objects, (c) the incorporation of natural language to understand context, and (d) the generation of robust robot control policies. The presented approach and systems are evaluated in multiple grasping and manipulation settings ranging from dexterous manipulation to pick-and-place, as well as contact-rich bimanual insertion tasks. Moreover, the usability of these innovations, especially when utilizing human task demonstrations and communication interfaces, is evaluated in several human-subject studies.
ContributorsStepputtis, Simon (Author) / Ben Amor, Heni (Thesis advisor) / Baral, Chitta (Committee member) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Lee, Stefan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
171818-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Recent advances in autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies have ensured that autonomous driving will soon be present in real-world traffic. Despite the potential of AVs, many studies have shown that traffic accidents in hybrid traffic environments (where both AVs and human-driven vehicles (HVs) are present) are inevitable because of the unpredictability

Recent advances in autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies have ensured that autonomous driving will soon be present in real-world traffic. Despite the potential of AVs, many studies have shown that traffic accidents in hybrid traffic environments (where both AVs and human-driven vehicles (HVs) are present) are inevitable because of the unpredictability of human-driven vehicles. Given that eliminating accidents is impossible, an achievable goal of designing AVs is to design them in a way so that they will not be blamed for any accident in which they are involved in. This work proposes BlaFT – a Blame-Free motion planning algorithm in hybrid Traffic. BlaFT is designed to be compatible with HVs and other AVs, and will not be blamed for accidents in a structured road environment. Also, it proves that no accidents will happen if all AVs are using the BlaFT motion planner and that when in hybrid traffic, the AV using BlaFT will be blame-free even if it is involved in a collision. The work instantiated scores of BlaFT and HV vehicles in an urban road scape loop in the 'Simulation of Urban MObility', ran the simulation for several hours, and observe that as the percentage of BlaFT vehicles increases, the traffic becomes safer. Adding BlaFT vehicles to HVs also increases the efficiency of traffic as a whole by up to 34%.
ContributorsPark, Sanggu (Author) / Shrivastava, Aviral (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Ruoyu (Committee member) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
156281-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Currently, one of the biggest limiting factors for long-term deployment of autonomous systems is the power constraints of a platform. In particular, for aerial robots such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the energy resource is the main driver of mission planning and operation definitions, as everything revolved around flight time.

Currently, one of the biggest limiting factors for long-term deployment of autonomous systems is the power constraints of a platform. In particular, for aerial robots such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the energy resource is the main driver of mission planning and operation definitions, as everything revolved around flight time. The focus of this work is to develop a new method of energy storage and charging for autonomous UAV systems, for use during long-term deployments in a constrained environment. We developed a charging solution that allows pre-equipped UAV system to land on top of designated charging pads and rapidly replenish their battery reserves, using a contact charging point. This system is designed to work with all types of rechargeable batteries, focusing on Lithium Polymer (LiPo) packs, that incorporate a battery management system for increased reliability. The project also explores optimization methods for fleets of UAV systems, to increase charging efficiency and extend battery lifespans. Each component of this project was first designed and tested in computer simulation. Following positive feedback and results, prototypes for each part of this system were developed and rigorously tested. Results show that the contact charging method is able to charge LiPo batteries at a 1-C rate, which is the industry standard rate, maintaining the same safety and efficiency standards as modern day direct connection chargers. Control software for these base stations was also created, to be integrated with a fleet management system, and optimizes UAV charge levels and distribution to extend LiPo battery lifetimes while still meeting expected mission demand. Each component of this project (hardware/software) was designed for manufacturing and implementation using industry standard tools, making it ideal for large-scale implementations. This system has been successfully tested with a fleet of UAV systems at Arizona State University, and is currently being integrated into an Arizona smart city environment for deployment.
ContributorsMian, Sami (Author) / Panchanathan, Sethuraman (Thesis advisor) / Berman, Spring (Committee member) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / McDaniel, Troy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
171862-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Deep neural networks have been shown to be vulnerable to adversarial attacks. Typical attack strategies alter authentic data subtly so as to obtain adversarial samples that resemble the original but otherwise would cause a network's misbehavior such as a high misclassification rate. Various attack approaches have been reported, with some

Deep neural networks have been shown to be vulnerable to adversarial attacks. Typical attack strategies alter authentic data subtly so as to obtain adversarial samples that resemble the original but otherwise would cause a network's misbehavior such as a high misclassification rate. Various attack approaches have been reported, with some showing state-of-the-art performance in attacking certain networks. In the meanwhile, many defense mechanisms have been proposed in the literature, some of which are quite effective for guarding against typical attacks. Yet, most of these attacks fail when the targeted network modifies its architecture or uses another set of parameters and vice versa. Moreover, the emerging of more advanced deep neural networks, such as generative adversarial networks (GANs), has made the situation more complicated and the game between the attack and defense is continuing. This dissertation aims at exploring the venerability of the deep neural networks by investigating the mechanisms behind the success/failure of the existing attack and defense approaches. Therefore, several deep learning-based approaches have been proposed to study the problem from different perspectives. First, I developed an adversarial attack approach by exploring the unlearned region of a typical deep neural network which is often over-parameterized. Second, I proposed an end-to-end learning framework to analyze the images generated by different GAN models. Third, I developed a defense mechanism that can secure the deep neural network against adversarial attacks with a defense layer consisting of a set of orthogonal kernels. Substantial experiments are conducted to unveil the potential factors that contribute to attack/defense effectiveness. This dissertation also concludes with a discussion of possible future works of achieving a robust deep neural network.
ContributorsDing, Yuzhen (Author) / Li, Baoxin (Thesis advisor) / Davulcu, Hasan (Committee member) / Venkateswara, Hemanth Kumar Demakethepalli (Committee member) / Yang, Yezhou (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022