pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Creativity of AI: Hierarchical Planning Model Learning for Facilitating Deep Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Hankz Hankui Zhuo, Shuting Deng, Mu Jin, Zhihao Ma, Kebing Jin, Chen Chen, Chao Yu
Date: 2021-12-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Montezuma's Revenge, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Despite of achieving great success in real-world applications, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is still suffering from three critical issues, i.e., data efficiency, lack of the interpretability and transferability. Recent research shows that embedding symbolic knowledge into DRL is promising in addressing those challenges. Inspired by this, we introduce a novel deep reinforcement learning framework with symbolic options. Our framework features a loop training procedure, which enables guiding the improvement of policy by planning with planning models (including action models and hierarchical task network models) and symbolic options learned from interactive trajectories automatically. The learned symbolic options alleviate the dense requirement of expert domain knowledge and provide inherent interpretability of policies. Moreover, the transferability and data efficiency can be further improved by planning with the symbolic planning models. To validate the effectiveness of our framework, we conduct experiments on two domains, Montezuma's Revenge and Office World, respectively. The results demonstrate the comparable performance, improved data efficiency, interpretability and transferability.
Autonomous Reinforcement Learning: Formalism and Benchmarking
Authors: Archit Sharma, Kelvin Xu, Nikhil Sardana, Abhishek Gupta, Karol Hausman, Sergey Levine, Chelsea Finn
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00
Proceeding: ICLR 2022 4
Tasks: Benchmarking, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Reinforcement learning (RL) provides a naturalistic framing for learning through trial and error, which is appealing both because of its simplicity and effectiveness and because of its resemblance to how humans and animals acquire skills through experience. However, real-world embodied learning, such as that performed by humans and animals, is situated in a continual, non-episodic world, whereas common benchmark tasks in RL are episodic, with the environment resetting between trials to provide the agent with multiple attempts. This discrepancy presents a major challenge when attempting to take RL algorithms developed for episodic simulated environments and run them on real-world platforms, such as robots. In this paper, we aim to address this discrepancy by laying out a framework for Autonomous Reinforcement Learning (ARL): reinforcement learning where the agent not only learns through its own experience, but also contends with lack of human supervision to reset between trials. We introduce a simulated benchmark EARL around this framework, containing a set of diverse and challenging simulated tasks reflective of the hurdles introduced to learning when only a minimal reliance on extrinsic intervention can be assumed. We show that standard approaches to episodic RL and existing approaches struggle as interventions are minimized, underscoring the need for developing new algorithms for reinforcement learning with a greater focus on autonomy.
ColO-RAN: Developing Machine Learning-based xApps for Open RAN Closed-loop Control on Programmable Experimental Platforms
Authors: Michele Polese, Leonardo Bonati, Salvatore D'Oro, Stefano Basagni, Tommaso Melodia
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Reinforcement Learning, Scheduling

In spite of the new opportunities brought about by the Open RAN, advances in ML-based network automation have been slow, mainly because of the unavailability of large-scale datasets and experimental testing infrastructure. This slows down the development and widespread adoption of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) agents on real networks, delaying progress in intelligent and autonomous RAN control. In this paper, we address these challenges by proposing practical solutions and software pipelines for the design, training, testing, and experimental evaluation of DRL-based closed-loop control in the Open RAN. We introduce ColO-RAN, the first publicly-available large-scale O-RAN testing framework with software-defined radios-in-the-loop. Building on the scale and computational capabilities of the Colosseum wireless network emulator, ColO-RAN enables ML research at scale using O-RAN components, programmable base stations, and a "wireless data factory". Specifically, we design and develop three exemplary xApps for DRL-based control of RAN slicing, scheduling and online model training, and evaluate their performance on a cellular network with 7 softwarized base stations and 42 users. Finally, we showcase the portability of ColO-RAN to different platforms by deploying it on Arena, an indoor programmable testbed. Extensive results from our first-of-its-kind large-scale evaluation highlight the benefits and challenges of DRL-based adaptive control. They also provide insights on the development of wireless DRL pipelines, from data analysis to the design of DRL agents, and on the tradeoffs associated to training on a live RAN. ColO-RAN and the collected large-scale dataset will be made publicly available to the research community.
Stability Verification in Stochastic Control Systems via Neural Network Supermartingales
Authors: Mathias Lechner, Đorđe Žikelić, Krishnendu Chatterjee, Thomas A. Henzinger
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00

We consider the problem of formally verifying almost-sure (a.s.) asymptotic stability in discrete-time nonlinear stochastic control systems. While verifying stability in deterministic control systems is extensively studied in the literature, verifying stability in stochastic control systems is an open problem. The few existing works on this topic either consider only specialized forms of stochasticity or make restrictive assumptions on the system, rendering them inapplicable to learning algorithms with neural network policies. In this work, we present an approach for general nonlinear stochastic control problems with two novel aspects: (a) instead of classical stochastic extensions of Lyapunov functions, we use ranking supermartingales (RSMs) to certify a.s.~asymptotic stability, and (b) we present a method for learning neural network RSMs. We prove that our approach guarantees a.s.~asymptotic stability of the system and provides the first method to obtain bounds on the stabilization time, which stochastic Lyapunov functions do not. Finally, we validate our approach experimentally on a set of nonlinear stochastic reinforcement learning environments with neural network policies.
Reinforcing RCTs with Multiple Priors while Learning about External Validity
Authors: Frederico Finan, Demian Pouzo
Date: 2021-12-16 00:00:00
Tasks: valid

This paper introduces a framework for incorporating prior information into the design of sequential experiments. These sources may include past experiments, expert opinions, or the experimenter's intuition. We model the problem using a multi-prior Bayesian approach, mapping each source to a Bayesian model and aggregating them based on posterior probabilities. Policies are evaluated on three criteria: learning the parameters of payoff distributions, the probability of choosing the wrong treatment, and average rewards. Our framework demonstrates several desirable properties, including robustness to sources lacking external validity, while maintaining strong finite sample performance.
On Optimizing Interventions in Shared Autonomy
Authors: Weihao Tan, David Koleczek, Siddhant Pradhan, Nicholas Perello, Vivek Chettiar, Vishal Rohra, Aaslesha Rajaram, Soundararajan Srinivasan, H M Sajjad Hossain, Yash Chandak
Date: 2021-12-16 00:00:00

Shared autonomy refers to approaches for enabling an autonomous agent to collaborate with a human with the aim of improving human performance. However, besides improving performance, it may often also be beneficial that the agent concurrently accounts for preserving the user's experience or satisfaction of collaboration. In order to address this additional goal, we examine approaches for improving the user experience by constraining the number of interventions by the autonomous agent. We propose two model-free reinforcement learning methods that can account for both hard and soft constraints on the number of interventions. We show that not only does our method outperform the existing baseline, but also eliminates the need to manually tune a black-box hyperparameter for controlling the level of assistance. We also provide an in-depth analysis of intervention scenarios in order to further illuminate system understanding.
SSDNet: State Space Decomposition Neural Network for Time Series Forecasting
Authors: Yang Lin, Irena Koprinska, Mashud Rana
Date: 2021-12-19 00:00:00
Tasks: Deep Learning, State Space Models, Time Series, Time Series Analysis, Time Series Forecasting

In this paper, we present SSDNet, a novel deep learning approach for time series forecasting. SSDNet combines the Transformer architecture with state space models to provide probabilistic and interpretable forecasts, including trend and seasonality components and previous time steps important for the prediction. The Transformer architecture is used to learn the temporal patterns and estimate the parameters of the state space model directly and efficiently, without the need for Kalman filters. We comprehensively evaluate the performance of SSDNet on five data sets, showing that SSDNet is an effective method in terms of accuracy and speed, outperforming state-of-the-art deep learning and statistical methods, and able to provide meaningful trend and seasonality components.
Online Grounding of Symbolic Planning Domains in Unknown Environments
Authors: Leonardo Lamanna, Luciano Serafini, Alessandro Saetti, Alfonso Gerevini, Paolo Traverso
Date: 2021-12-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Object

If a robotic agent wants to exploit symbolic planning techniques to achieve some goal, it must be able to properly ground an abstract planning domain in the environment in which it operates. However, if the environment is initially unknown by the agent, the agent needs to explore it and discover the salient aspects of the environment needed to reach its goals. Namely, the agent has to discover: (i) the objects present in the environment, (ii) the properties of these objects and their relations, and finally (iii) how abstract actions can be successfully executed. The paper proposes a framework that aims to accomplish the aforementioned perspective for an agent that perceives the environment partially and subjectively, through real value sensors (e.g., GPS, and on-board camera) and can operate in the environment through low level actuators (e.g., move forward of 20 cm). We evaluate the proposed architecture in photo-realistic simulated environments, where the sensors are RGB-D on-board camera, GPS and compass, and low level actions include movements, grasping/releasing objects, and manipulating objects. The agent is placed in an unknown environment and asked to find objects of a certain type, place an object on top of another, close or open an object of a certain type. We compare our approach with the state of the art methods on object goal navigation based on reinforcement learning, showing better performances.
Neuromorphic Camera Denoising using Graph Neural Network-driven Transformers
Authors: Yusra Alkendi, Rana Azzam, Abdulla Ayyad, Sajid Javed, Lakmal Seneviratne, Yahya Zweiri
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00
Tasks: Denoising, Graph Neural Network

Neuromorphic vision is a bio-inspired technology that has triggered a paradigm shift in the computer-vision community and is serving as a key-enabler for a multitude of applications. This technology has offered significant advantages including reduced power consumption, reduced processing needs, and communication speed-ups. However, neuromorphic cameras suffer from significant amounts of measurement noise. This noise deteriorates the performance of neuromorphic event-based perception and navigation algorithms. In this paper, we propose a novel noise filtration algorithm to eliminate events which do not represent real log-intensity variations in the observed scene. We employ a Graph Neural Network (GNN)-driven transformer algorithm, called GNN-Transformer, to classify every active event pixel in the raw stream into real-log intensity variation or noise. Within the GNN, a message-passing framework, called EventConv, is carried out to reflect the spatiotemporal correlation among the events, while preserving their asynchronous nature. We also introduce the Known-object Ground-Truth Labeling (KoGTL) approach for generating approximate ground truth labels of event streams under various illumination conditions. KoGTL is used to generate labeled datasets, from experiments recorded in chalenging lighting conditions. These datasets are used to train and extensively test our proposed algorithm. When tested on unseen datasets, the proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods by 8.8% in terms of filtration accuracy. Additional tests are also conducted on publicly available datasets to demonstrate the generalization capabilities of the proposed algorithm in the presence of illumination variations and different motion dynamics. Compared to existing solutions, qualitative results verified the superior capability of the proposed algorithm to eliminate noise while preserving meaningful scene events.
AI-Assisted Verification of Biometric Data Collection
Authors: Ryan Lindsey
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00

Recognizing actions from a video feed is a challenging task to automate, especially so on older hardware. There are two aims for this project: one is to recognize an action from the front-facing camera on an Android phone, the other is to support as many phones and Android versions as possible. This limits us to using models that are small enough to run on mobile phones with and without GPUs, and only using the camera feed to recognize the action. In this paper we compare performance of the YOLO architecture across devices (with and without dedicated GPUs) using models trained on a custom dataset. We also discuss limitations in recognizing faces and actions from video on limited hardware.
Video-Based Reconstruction of the Trajectories Performed by Skiers
Authors: Matteo Dunnhofer, Alberto Zurini, Maurizio Dunnhofer, Christian Micheloni
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00
Tasks: Camera Calibration

Trajectories are fundamental in different skiing disciplines. Tools enabling the analysis of such curves can enhance the training activity and enrich the broadcasting contents. However, the solutions currently available are based on geo-localized sensors and surface models. In this short paper, we propose a video-based approach to reconstruct the sequence of points traversed by an athlete during its performance. Our prototype is constituted by a pipeline of deep learning-based algorithms to reconstruct the athlete's motion and to visualize it according to the camera perspective. This is achieved for different skiing disciplines in the wild without any camera calibration. We tested our solution on broadcast and smartphone-captured videos of alpine skiing and ski jumping professional competitions. The qualitative results achieved show the potential of our solution.
Enhanced Frame and Event-Based Simulator and Event-Based Video Interpolation Network
Authors: Adam Radomski, Andreas Georgiou, Thomas Debrunner, Chenghan Li, Luca Longinotti, Minwon Seo, Moosung Kwak, Chang-Woo Shin, Paul K. J. Park, Hyunsurk Eric Ryu, Kynan Eng
Date: 2021-12-17 00:00:00
Tasks: Event-based vision, Optical Flow Estimation

Fast neuromorphic event-based vision sensors (Dynamic Vision Sensor, DVS) can be combined with slower conventional frame-based sensors to enable higher-quality inter-frame interpolation than traditional methods relying on fixed motion approximations using e.g. optical flow. In this work we present a new, advanced event simulator that can produce realistic scenes recorded by a camera rig with an arbitrary number of sensors located at fixed offsets. It includes a new configurable frame-based image sensor model with realistic image quality reduction effects, and an extended DVS model with more accurate characteristics. We use our simulator to train a novel reconstruction model designed for end-to-end reconstruction of high-fps video. Unlike previously published methods, our method does not require the frame and DVS cameras to have the same optics, positions, or camera resolutions. It is also not limited to objects a fixed distance from the sensor. We show that data generated by our simulator can be used to train our new model, leading to reconstructed images on public datasets of equivalent or better quality than the state of the art. We also show our sensor generalizing to data recorded by real sensors.
Monitoring crop phenology with street-level imagery using computer vision
Authors: Raphaël d'Andrimont, Momchil Yordanov, Laura Martinez-Sanchez, Marijn van der Velde
Date: 2021-12-16 00:00:00
Tasks: Transfer Learning

Street-level imagery holds a significant potential to scale-up in-situ data collection. This is enabled by combining the use of cheap high quality cameras with recent advances in deep learning compute solutions to derive relevant thematic information. We present a framework to collect and extract crop type and phenological information from street level imagery using computer vision. During the 2018 growing season, high definition pictures were captured with side-looking action cameras in the Flevoland province of the Netherlands. Each month from March to October, a fixed 200-km route was surveyed collecting one picture per second resulting in a total of 400,000 geo-tagged pictures. At 220 specific parcel locations detailed on the spot crop phenology observations were recorded for 17 crop types. Furthermore, the time span included specific pre-emergence parcel stages, such as differently cultivated bare soil for spring and summer crops as well as post-harvest cultivation practices, e.g. green manuring and catch crops. Classification was done using TensorFlow with a well-known image recognition model, based on transfer learning with convolutional neural networks (MobileNet). A hypertuning methodology was developed to obtain the best performing model among 160 models. This best model was applied on an independent inference set discriminating crop type with a Macro F1 score of 88.1% and main phenological stage at 86.9% at the parcel level. Potential and caveats of the approach along with practical considerations for implementation and improvement are discussed. The proposed framework speeds up high quality in-situ data collection and suggests avenues for massive data collection via automated classification using computer vision.
ALEBk: Feasibility Study of Attention Level Estimation via Blink Detection applied to e-Learning
Authors: Roberto Daza, Daniel DeAlcala, Aythami Morales, Ruben Tolosana, Ruth Cobos, Julian Fierrez
Date: 2021-12-16 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Electroencephalogram (EEG)

This work presents a feasibility study of remote attention level estimation based on eye blink frequency. We first propose an eye blink detection system based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), very competitive with respect to related works. Using this detector, we experimentally evaluate the relationship between the eye blink rate and the attention level of students captured during online sessions. The experimental framework is carried out using a public multimodal database for eye blink detection and attention level estimation called mEBAL, which comprises data from 38 students and multiples acquisition sensors, in particular, i) an electroencephalogram (EEG) band which provides the time signals coming from the student's cognitive information, and ii) RGB and NIR cameras to capture the students face gestures. The results achieved suggest an inverse correlation between the eye blink frequency and the attention level. This relation is used in our proposed method called ALEBk for estimating the attention level as the inverse of the eye blink frequency. Our results open a new research line to introduce this technology for attention level estimation on future e-learning platforms, among other applications of this kind of behavioral biometrics based on face analysis.
Fast and Robust Registration of Partially Overlapping Point Clouds
Authors: Eduardo Arnold, Sajjad Mozaffari, Mehrdad Dianati
Date: 2021-12-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Autonomous Vehicles

Real-time registration of partially overlapping point clouds has emerging applications in cooperative perception for autonomous vehicles and multi-agent SLAM. The relative translation between point clouds in these applications is higher than in traditional SLAM and odometry applications, which challenges the identification of correspondences and a successful registration. In this paper, we propose a novel registration method for partially overlapping point clouds where correspondences are learned using an efficient point-wise feature encoder, and refined using a graph-based attention network. This attention network exploits geometrical relationships between key points to improve the matching in point clouds with low overlap. At inference time, the relative pose transformation is obtained by robustly fitting the correspondences through sample consensus. The evaluation is performed on the KITTI dataset and a novel synthetic dataset including low-overlapping point clouds with displacements of up to 30m. The proposed method achieves on-par performance with state-of-the-art methods on the KITTI dataset, and outperforms existing methods for low overlapping point clouds. Additionally, the proposed method achieves significantly faster inference times, as low as 410ms, between 5 and 35 times faster than competing methods. Our code and dataset are available at https://github.com/eduardohenriquearnold/fastreg.
Robust interaction control of a dielectric elastomer actuator with variable stiffness
Authors: Gianluca Rizzello, Francesco Ferrante, David Naso, Stefan Seelecke
Date: 2021-12-20 00:00:00

This paper presents an interaction control algorithm for a dielectric elastomer membrane actuator. The proposed method permits efficient exploitation of the controllable stiffness of the material, allowing to use the membrane as a "programmable spring" in applications such as robotic manipulation or haptic devices. To achieve this goal, we propose a design algorithm based on robust control theory and linear matrix inequalities. The resulting controller permits to arbitrarily shape the stiffness of the elastomer, while providing robust stability and performance with respect to model nonlinearities. A self-sensing displacement estimation algorithm allows implementation of the method without the need of a deformation sensor, thus reducing cost and size of the system. The approach is validated on an experimental prototype consisting of an elastomer membrane preloaded with a bistable biasing spring.