OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Neuromorphic Perception and Navigation for Mobile Robots: A Review
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

With the fast and unstoppable evolution of robotics and artificial intelligence, effective autonomous navigation in real-world scenarios has become one of the most pressing challenges in the literature. However, demanding requirements, such as real-time operation, energy and computational efficiency, robustness, and reliability, make most current solutions unsuitable for real-world challenges. Thus, researchers are forced to seek innovative approaches, such as bio-inspired solutions. Indeed, animals have the intrinsic ability to efficiently perceive, understand, and navigate their unstructured surroundings. To do so, they exploit self-motion cues, proprioception, and visual flow in a cognitive process to map their environment and locate themselves within it. Computational neuroscientists aim to answer ''how'' and ''why'' such cognitive processes occur in the brain, to design novel neuromorphic sensors and methods that imitate biological processing. This survey aims to comprehensively review the application of brain-inspired strategies to autonomous navigation, considering: neuromorphic perception and asynchronous event processing, energy-efficient and adaptive learning, or the imitation of the working principles of brain areas that play a crucial role in navigation such as the hippocampus or the entorhinal cortex.
Countermeasures Against Adversarial Examples in Radio Signal Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

Deep learning algorithms have been shown to be powerful in many communication network design problems, including that in automatic modulation classification. However, they are vulnerable to carefully crafted attacks called adversarial examples. Hence, the reliance of wireless networks on deep learning algorithms poses a serious threat to the security and operation of wireless networks. In this letter, we propose for the first time a countermeasure against adversarial examples in modulation classification. Our countermeasure is based on a neural rejection technique, augmented by label smoothing and Gaussian noise injection, that allows to detect and reject adversarial examples with high accuracy. Our results demonstrate that the proposed countermeasure can protect deep-learning based modulation classification systems against adversarial examples.
ED-VAE: Entropy Decomposition of ELBO in Variational Autoencoders
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Traditional Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) are constrained by the limitations of the Evidence Lower Bound (ELBO) formulation, particularly when utilizing simplistic, non-analytic, or unknown prior distributions. These limitations inhibit the VAE's ability to generate high-quality samples and provide clear, interpretable latent representations. This work introduces the Entropy Decomposed Variational Autoencoder (ED-VAE), a novel re-formulation of the ELBO that explicitly includes entropy and cross-entropy components. This reformulation significantly enhances model flexibility, allowing for the integration of complex and non-standard priors. By providing more detailed control over the encoding and regularization of latent spaces, ED-VAE not only improves interpretability but also effectively captures the complex interactions between latent variables and observed data, thus leading to better generative performance.
A Hybrid Training-time and Run-time Defense Against Adversarial Attacks in Modulation Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

Motivated by the superior performance of deep learning in many applications including computer vision and natural language processing, several recent studies have focused on applying deep neural network for devising future generations of wireless networks. However, several recent works have pointed out that imperceptible and carefully designed adversarial examples (attacks) can significantly deteriorate the classification accuracy. In this paper, we investigate a defense mechanism based on both training-time and run-time defense techniques for protecting machine learning-based radio signal (modulation) classification against adversarial attacks. The training-time defense consists of adversarial training and label smoothing, while the run-time defense employs a support vector machine-based neural rejection (NR). Considering a white-box scenario and real datasets, we demonstrate that our proposed techniques outperform existing state-of-the-art technologies.
Formal Modelling and Analysis of Slot Machines
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2024
Year: 2024

Slot machines can have fairly complex behaviour. Determining the RTP (return to player) can be involved, especially when a player has an influence on the course of the game. In this paper we model the behaviour of slot machines using probabilistic process specifications where the intervention of players is modelled using non-determinism. The RTP is formulated as a quantitative modal formula which can be evaluated fully automatically on the behavioural specifications of these slot machines. We apply the method on an actual slot machine provided by the company Errèl Industries B.V. The most useful contribution of this paper is that we show how to describe the behaviour of slot machines both concisely and unequivocally. Using quantitative modal logics there is an extra bonus, as we can quite easily provide valuable insights by a.o. computing the exact RTP and obtaining the optimal player strategies.
Heuristic Predictive Control for Multi-Robot Flocking in Congested Environments
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

Multi-robot flocking possesses extraordinary advantages over a single-robot system in diverse domains, but it is challenging to ensure safe and optimal performance in congested environments. Hence, this paper is focused on the investigation of distributed optimal flocking control for multiple robots in crowded environments. A heuristic predictive control solution is proposed based on a Gibbs Random Field (GRF), in which bio-inspired potential functions are used to characterize robot-robot and robot-environment interactions. The optimal solution is obtained by maximizing a posteriori joint distribution of the GRF in a certain future time instant. A gradient-based heuristic solution is developed, which could significantly speed up the computation of the optimal control. Mathematical analysis is also conducted to show the validity of the heuristic solution. Multiple collision risk levels are designed to improve the collision avoidance performance of robots in dynamic environments. The proposed heuristic predictive control is evaluated comprehensively from multiple perspectives based on different metrics in a challenging simulation environment. The competence of the proposed algorithm is validated via the comparison with the non-heuristic predictive control and two existing popular flocking control methods. Real-life experiments are also performed using four quadrotor UAVs to further demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design.
Cue Point Estimation using Object Detection
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

Cue points indicate possible temporal boundaries in a transition between two pieces of music in DJ mixing and constitute a crucial element in autonomous DJ systems as well as for live mixing. In this work, we present a novel method for automatic cue point estimation, interpreted as a computer vision object detection task. Our proposed system is based on a pre-trained object detection transformer which we fine-tune on our novel cue point dataset. Our provided dataset contains 21k manually annotated cue points from human experts as well as metronome information for nearly 5k individual tracks, making this dataset 35x larger than the previously available cue point dataset. Unlike previous methods, our approach does not require low-level musical information analysis, while demonstrating increased precision in retrieving cue point positions. Moreover, our proposed method demonstrates high adherence to phrasing, a type of high-level music structure commonly emphasized in electronic dance music. The code, model checkpoints, and dataset are made publicly available.
Safe-Embed: Unveiling the Safety-Critical Knowledge of Sentence Encoders
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2024
Year: 2024

Despite the impressive capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) in various tasks, their vulnerability to unsafe prompts remains a critical issue. These prompts can lead LLMs to generate responses on illegal or sensitive topics, posing a significant threat to their safe and ethical use. Existing approaches attempt to address this issue using classification models, but they have several drawbacks. With the increasing complexity of unsafe prompts, similarity search-based techniques that identify specific features of unsafe prompts provide a more robust and effective solution to this evolving problem. This paper investigates the potential of sentence encoders to distinguish safe from unsafe prompts, and the ability to classify various unsafe prompts according to a safety taxonomy. We introduce new pairwise datasets and the Categorical Purity (CP) metric to measure this capability. Our findings reveal both the effectiveness and limitations of existing sentence encoders, proposing directions to improve sentence encoders to operate as more robust safety detectors. Our code is available at https://github.com/JwdanielJung/Safe-Embed.
Performance Evaluation of Knowledge Graph Embedding Approaches under Non-adversarial Attacks
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2024
Year: 2024

Knowledge Graph Embedding (KGE) transforms a discrete Knowledge Graph (KG) into a continuous vector space facilitating its use in various AI-driven applications like Semantic Search, Question Answering, or Recommenders. While KGE approaches are effective in these applications, most existing approaches assume that all information in the given KG is correct. This enables attackers to influence the output of these approaches, e.g., by perturbing the input. Consequently, the robustness of such KGE approaches has to be addressed. Recent work focused on adversarial attacks. However, non-adversarial attacks on all attack surfaces of these approaches have not been thoroughly examined. We close this gap by evaluating the impact of non-adversarial attacks on the performance of 5 state-of-the-art KGE algorithms on 5 datasets with respect to attacks on 3 attack surfaces-graph, parameter, and label perturbation. Our evaluation results suggest that label perturbation has a strong effect on the KGE performance, followed by parameter perturbation with a moderate and graph with a low effect.
Trust and Resilience in Federated Learning Through Smart Contracts Enabled Decentralized Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

In this paper, we present a study of a Federated Learning (FL) system, based on the use of decentralized architectures to ensure trust and increase reliability. The system is based on the idea that the FL collaborators upload the (ciphered) model parameters on the Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) and interact with a dedicated smart contract to track their behavior. Thank to this smart contract, the phases of parameter updates are managed efficiently, thereby strengthening data security. We have carried out an experimental study that exploits two different methods of weight aggregation, i.e., a classic averaging scheme and a federated proximal aggregation. The results confirm the feasibility of the proposal.
Efficient Stochastic Routing in Path-Centric Uncertain Road Networks -- Extended Version
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2024
Year: 2024

The availability of massive vehicle trajectory data enables the modeling of road-network constrained movement as travel-cost distributions rather than just single-valued costs, thereby capturing the inherent uncertainty of movement and enabling improved routing quality. Thus, stochastic routing has been studied extensively in the edge-centric model, where such costs are assigned to the edges in a graph representation of a road network. However, as this model still disregards important information in trajectories and fails to capture dependencies among cost distributions, a path-centric model, where costs are assigned to paths, has been proposed that captures dependencies better and provides an improved foundation for routing. Unfortunately, when applied in this model, existing routing algorithms are inefficient due to two shortcomings that we eliminate. First, when exploring candidate paths, existing algorithms only consider the costs of candidate paths from the source to intermediate vertices, while disregarding the costs of travel from the intermediate vertices to the destination, causing many non-competitive paths to be explored. We propose two heuristics for estimating the cost from an intermediate vertex to the destination, thus improving routing efficiency. Second, the edge-centric model relies on stochastic dominance-based pruning to improve efficiency. This pruning assumes that costs are independent and is therefore inapplicable in the path-centric model that takes dependencies into account. We introduce a notion of virtual path that effectively enables stochastic dominance-based pruning in the path-based model, thus further improving efficiency. Empirical studies using two real-world trajectory sets offer insight into the properties of the proposed solution, indicating that it enables efficient stochastic routing in the path-centric model.
Intercepting Unauthorized Aerial Robots in Controlled Airspace Using Reinforcement Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

The proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in controlled airspace presents significant risks, including potential collisions, disruptions to air traffic, and security threats. Ensuring the safe and efficient operation of airspace, particularly in urban environments and near critical infrastructure, necessitates effective methods to intercept unauthorized or non-cooperative UAVs. This work addresses the critical need for robust, adaptive systems capable of managing such threats through the use of Reinforcement Learning (RL). We present a novel approach utilizing RL to train fixed-wing UAV pursuer agents for intercepting dynamic evader targets. Our methodology explores both model-based and model-free RL algorithms, specifically DreamerV3, Truncated Quantile Critics (TQC), and Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). The training and evaluation of these algorithms were conducted under diverse scenarios, including unseen evasion strategies and environmental perturbations. Our approach leverages high-fidelity flight dynamics simulations to create realistic training environments. This research underscores the importance of developing intelligent, adaptive control systems for UAV interception, significantly contributing to the advancement of secure and efficient airspace management. It demonstrates the potential of RL to train systems capable of autonomously achieving these critical tasks.
Fine-grained large-scale content recommendations for MSX sellers
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2024
Year: 2024

One of the most critical tasks of Microsoft sellers is to meticulously track and nurture potential business opportunities through proactive engagement and tailored solutions. Recommender systems play a central role to help sellers achieve their goals. In this paper, we present a content recommendation model which surfaces various types of content (technical documentation, comparison with competitor products, customer success stories etc.) that sellers can share with their customers or use for their own self-learning. The model operates at the opportunity level which is the lowest possible granularity and the most relevant one for sellers. It is based on semantic matching between metadata from the contents and carefully selected attributes of the opportunities. Considering the volume of seller-managed opportunities in organizations such as Microsoft, we show how to perform efficient semantic matching over a very large number of opportunity-content combinations. The main challenge is to ensure that the top-5 relevant contents for each opportunity are recommended out of a total of $\approx 40,000$ published contents. We achieve this target through an extensive comparison of different model architectures and feature selection. Finally, we further examine the quality of the recommendations in a quantitative manner using a combination of human domain experts as well as by using the recently proposed "LLM as a judge" framework.
FE-GUT: Factor Graph Optimization hybrid with Extended Kalman Filter for tightly coupled GNSS/UWB Integration
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

Precise positioning and navigation information has been increasingly important with the development of the consumer electronics market. Due to some deficits of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), such as susceptible to interferences, integrating of GNSS with additional alternative sensors is a promising approach to overcome the performance limitations of GNSS-based localization systems. Ultra-Wideband (UWB) can be used to enhance GNSS in constructing an integrated localization system. However, most low-cost UWB devices lack a hardware-level time synchronization feature, which necessitates the estimation and compensation of the time-offset in the tightly coupled GNSS/UWB integration. Given the flexibility of probabilistic graphical models, the time-offset can be modeled as an invariant constant in the discretization of the continuous model. This work proposes a novel architecture in which Factor Graph Optimization (FGO) is hybrid with Extend Kalman Filter (EKF) for tightly coupled GNSS/UWB integration with online Temporal calibration (FE-GUT). FGO is utilized to precisely estimate the time-offset, while EKF provides initailization for the new factors and performs time-offset compensation. Simulation-based experiments validate the integrated localization performance of FE-GUT. In a four-wheeled robot scenario, the results demonstrate that, compared to EKF, FE-GUT can improve horizontal and vertical localization accuracy by 58.59\% and 34.80\%, respectively, while the time-offset estimation accuracy is improved by 76.80\%. All the source codes and datasets can be gotten via https://github.com/zhaoqj23/FE-GUT/.
Integrating Ontology Design with the CRISP-DM in the context of Cyber-Physical Systems Maintenance
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

In the following contribution, a method is introduced that integrates domain expert-centric ontology design with the Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM). This approach aims to efficiently build an application-specific ontology tailored to the corrective maintenance of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The proposed method is divided into three phases. In phase one, ontology requirements are systematically specified, defining the relevant knowledge scope. Accordingly, CPS life cycle data is contextualized in phase two using domain-specific ontological artifacts. This formalized domain knowledge is then utilized in the CRISP-DM to efficiently extract new insights from the data. Finally, the newly developed data-driven model is employed to populate and expand the ontology. Thus, information extracted from this model is semantically annotated and aligned with the existing ontology in phase three. The applicability of this method has been evaluated in an anomaly detection case study for a modular process plant.
A Starter's Kit for Concentric Tube Robots
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2024
Year: 2024

Concentric Tube Robots (CTRs) have garnered significant interest within the surgical robotics community because of their flexibility, dexterity, and ease of miniaturization. However, mastering the unique kinematics and design principles of CTRs can be challenging for newcomers to the field. In this paper, we present an educational kit aimed at lowering the barriers to entry into concentric tube robot research. Our goal is to provide accessible learning resources for CTRs, bridging the knowledge gap between traditional robotic arms and these specialized devices. The proposed kit includes (1) An open-source design and assembly instructions for an economical (cost of materials $\approx$ 700 USD) modular CTR; (2) A set of self-study materials to learn the basics of CTR modeling and control, including automatically-graded assignments. To evaluate the effectiveness of our educational kit, we conducted a human subjects study involving first-year graduate students in engineering. Over a four-week period, participants -- none of whom had any prior knowledge of concentric tube robots -- successfully built their first CTR using the provided materials, implemented the robot's kinematics in MATLAB, and conducted a tip-tracking experiment with an optical tracking device. Our findings suggest that the proposed kit facilitates learning and hands-on experience with CTRs, and furthermore, it has the potential to help early-stage graduate students get rapidly started with CTR research. By disseminating these resources, we hope to broaden participation in concentric tube robot research to a wider a more diverse group of researchers.
Improved Block Merging for 3D Point Cloud Instance Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2024
Year: 2024

This paper proposes a novel block merging algorithm suitable for any block-based 3D instance segmentation technique. The proposed work improves over the state-of-the-art by allowing wrongly labelled points of already processed blocks to be corrected through label propagation. By doing so, instance overlap between blocks is not anymore necessary to produce the desirable results, which is the main limitation of the current art. Our experiments show that the proposed block merging algorithm significantly and consistently improves the obtained accuracy for all evaluation metrics employed in literature, regardless of the underlying network architecture.
Less is More: Efficient Brain-Inspired Learning for Autonomous Driving Trajectory Prediction
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2024
Year: 2024

Accurately and safely predicting the trajectories of surrounding vehicles is essential for fully realizing autonomous driving (AD). This paper presents the Human-Like Trajectory Prediction model (HLTP++), which emulates human cognitive processes to improve trajectory prediction in AD. HLTP++ incorporates a novel teacher-student knowledge distillation framework. The "teacher" model equipped with an adaptive visual sector, mimics the dynamic allocation of attention human drivers exhibit based on factors like spatial orientation, proximity, and driving speed. On the other hand, the "student" model focuses on real-time interaction and human decision-making, drawing parallels to the human memory storage mechanism. Furthermore, we improve the model's efficiency by introducing a new Fourier Adaptive Spike Neural Network (FA-SNN), allowing for faster and more precise predictions with fewer parameters. Evaluated using the NGSIM, HighD, and MoCAD benchmarks, HLTP++ demonstrates superior performance compared to existing models, which reduces the predicted trajectory error with over 11% on the NGSIM dataset and 25% on the HighD datasets. Moreover, HLTP++ demonstrates strong adaptability in challenging environments with incomplete input data. This marks a significant stride in the journey towards fully AD systems.