In this paper, we design a 3D map management scheme for edge-assisted mobile augmented reality (MAR) to support the pose estimation of individual MAR device, which uploads camera frames to an edge server. Our objective is to minimize the pose estimation uncertainty of the MAR device by periodically selecting a proper set of camera frames for uploading to update the 3D map. To address the challenges of the dynamic uplink data rate and the time-varying pose of the MAR device, we propose a digital twin (DT)-based approach to 3D map management. First, a DT is created for the MAR device, which emulates 3D map management based on predicting subsequent camera frames. Second, a model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) algorithm is developed, utilizing the data collected from both the actual and the emulated data to manage the 3D map. With extensive emulated data provided by the DT, the MBRL algorithm can quickly provide an adaptive map management policy in a highly dynamic environment. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed DT-based 3D map management outperforms benchmark schemes by achieving lower pose estimation uncertainty and higher data efficiency in dynamic environments.
An outstanding problem in the design of distributed ledgers concerns policies that govern the manner in which users interact with the network. Network usability is crucial to the mainstream adoption of distributed ledgers, particularly for enterprise applications in which most users do not wish to operate full node. For DAG-based ledgers such as IOTA, we propose a user-node interaction mechanism that is designed to ensure the risk of a user experiencing a poor quality of service is low. Our mechanism involves users selecting nodes to issue their transactions to the ledger based on quality of service indicators advertised by the nodes. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed policies.
This paper studies a new problem, \emph{active learning with partial labels} (ALPL). In this setting, an oracle annotates the query samples with partial labels, relaxing the oracle from the demanding accurate labeling process. To address ALPL, we first build an intuitive baseline that can be seamlessly incorporated into existing AL frameworks. Though effective, this baseline is still susceptible to the \emph{overfitting}, and falls short of the representative partial-label-based samples during the query process. Drawing inspiration from human inference in cognitive science, where accurate inferences can be explicitly derived from \emph{counter-examples} (CEs), our objective is to leverage this human-like learning pattern to tackle the \emph{overfitting} while enhancing the process of selecting representative samples in ALPL. Specifically, we construct CEs by reversing the partial labels for each instance, and then we propose a simple but effective WorseNet to directly learn from this complementary pattern. By leveraging the distribution gap between WorseNet and the predictor, this adversarial evaluation manner could enhance both the performance of the predictor itself and the sample selection process, allowing the predictor to capture more accurate patterns in the data. Experimental results on five real-world datasets and four benchmark datasets show that our proposed method achieves comprehensive improvements over ten representative AL frameworks, highlighting the superiority of WorseNet. The source code will be available at \url{//github.com/Ferenas/APLL}.
In this work, we present SynTable, a unified and flexible Python-based dataset generator built using NVIDIA's Isaac Sim Replicator Composer for generating high-quality synthetic datasets for unseen object amodal instance segmentation of cluttered tabletop scenes. Our dataset generation tool can render a complex 3D scene containing object meshes, materials, textures, lighting, and backgrounds. Metadata, such as modal and amodal instance segmentation masks, occlusion masks, depth maps, bounding boxes, and material properties, can be generated to automatically annotate the scene according to the users' requirements. Our tool eliminates the need for manual labeling in the dataset generation process while ensuring the quality and accuracy of the dataset. In this work, we discuss our design goals, framework architecture, and the performance of our tool. We demonstrate the use of a sample dataset generated using SynTable by ray tracing for training a state-of-the-art model, UOAIS-Net. The results show significantly improved performance in Sim-to-Real transfer when evaluated on the OSD-Amodal dataset. We offer this tool as an open-source, easy-to-use, photorealistic dataset generator for advancing research in deep learning and synthetic data generation.
The integrated development of city clusters has given rise to an increasing demand for intercity travel. Intercity ride-pooling service exhibits considerable potential in upgrading traditional intercity bus services by implementing demand-responsive enhancements. Nevertheless, its online operations suffer the inherent complexities due to the coupling of vehicle resource allocation among cities and pooled-ride vehicle routing. To tackle these challenges, this study proposes a two-level framework designed to facilitate online fleet management. Specifically, a novel multi-agent feudal reinforcement learning model is proposed at the upper level of the framework to cooperatively assign idle vehicles to different intercity lines, while the lower level updates the routes of vehicles using an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic. Numerical studies based on the realistic dataset of Xiamen and its surrounding cities in China show that the proposed framework effectively mitigates the supply and demand imbalances, and achieves significant improvement in both the average daily system profit and order fulfillment ratio.
We study sensor/agent data collection and collaboration policies for parameter estimation, accounting for resource constraints and correlation between observations collected by distinct sensors/agents. Specifically, we consider a group of sensors/agents each samples from different variables of a multivariate Gaussian distribution and has different estimation objectives, and we formulate a sensor/agent's data collection and collaboration policy design problem as a Fisher information maximization (or Cramer-Rao bound minimization) problem. When the knowledge of correlation between variables is available, we analytically identify two particular scenarios: (1) where the knowledge of the correlation between samples cannot be leveraged for collaborative estimation purposes and (2) where the optimal data collection policy involves investing scarce resources to collaboratively sample and transfer information that is not of immediate interest and whose statistics are already known, with the sole goal of increasing the confidence on the estimate of the parameter of interest. When the knowledge of certain correlation is unavailable but collaboration may still be worthwhile, we propose novel ways to apply multi-armed bandit algorithms to learn the optimal data collection and collaboration policy in our distributed parameter estimation problem and demonstrate that the proposed algorithms, DOUBLE-F, DOUBLE-Z, UCB-F, UCB-Z, are effective through simulations.
Existing object-search approaches enable robots to search through free pathways, however, robots operating in unstructured human-centered environments frequently also have to manipulate the environment to their needs. In this work, we introduce a novel interactive multi-object search task in which a robot has to open doors to navigate rooms and search inside cabinets and drawers to find target objects. These new challenges require combining manipulation and navigation skills in unexplored environments. We present HIMOS, a hierarchical reinforcement learning approach that learns to compose exploration, navigation, and manipulation skills. To achieve this, we design an abstract high-level action space around a semantic map memory and leverage the explored environment as instance navigation points. We perform extensive experiments in simulation and the real-world that demonstrate that HIMOS effectively transfers to new environments in a zero-shot manner. It shows robustness to unseen subpolicies, failures in their execution, and different robot kinematics. These capabilities open the door to a wide range of downstream tasks across embodied AI and real-world use cases.
The impact of digital device use on health and well-being is a pressing question to which individuals, families, schools, policy makers, legislators, and digital designers are all demanding answers. However, the scientific literature on this topic to date is marred by small and/or unrepresentative samples, poor measurement of core constructs (e.g., device use, smartphone addiction), and a limited ability to address the psychological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the relationships between device use and well-being. A number of recent authoritative reviews have made urgent calls for future research projects to address these limitations. The critical role of research is to identify which patterns of use are associated with benefits versus risks, and who is more vulnerable to harmful versus beneficial outcomes, so that we can pursue evidence-based product design, education, and regulation aimed at maximizing benefits and minimizing risks of smartphones and other digital devices. We describe a protocol for a Digital Well-Being (DWB) study to help answer these questions.
Deep neural networks (DNNs) have succeeded in many different perception tasks, e.g., computer vision, natural language processing, reinforcement learning, etc. The high-performed DNNs heavily rely on intensive resource consumption. For example, training a DNN requires high dynamic memory, a large-scale dataset, and a large number of computations (a long training time); even inference with a DNN also demands a large amount of static storage, computations (a long inference time), and energy. Therefore, state-of-the-art DNNs are often deployed on a cloud server with a large number of super-computers, a high-bandwidth communication bus, a shared storage infrastructure, and a high power supplement. Recently, some new emerging intelligent applications, e.g., AR/VR, mobile assistants, Internet of Things, require us to deploy DNNs on resource-constrained edge devices. Compare to a cloud server, edge devices often have a rather small amount of resources. To deploy DNNs on edge devices, we need to reduce the size of DNNs, i.e., we target a better trade-off between resource consumption and model accuracy. In this dissertation, we studied four edge intelligence scenarios, i.e., Inference on Edge Devices, Adaptation on Edge Devices, Learning on Edge Devices, and Edge-Server Systems, and developed different methodologies to enable deep learning in each scenario. Since current DNNs are often over-parameterized, our goal is to find and reduce the redundancy of the DNNs in each scenario.
Deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and Data Fusion techniques have gained popularity in public and government domains. This usually requires capturing and consolidating data from multiple sources. As datasets do not necessarily originate from identical sensors, fused data typically results in a complex data problem. Because military is investigating how heterogeneous IoT devices can aid processes and tasks, we investigate a multi-sensor approach. Moreover, we propose a signal to image encoding approach to transform information (signal) to integrate (fuse) data from IoT wearable devices to an image which is invertible and easier to visualize supporting decision making. Furthermore, we investigate the challenge of enabling an intelligent identification and detection operation and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed Deep Learning and Anomaly Detection models that can support future application that utilizes hand gesture data from wearable devices.
Many current applications use recommendations in order to modify the natural user behavior, such as to increase the number of sales or the time spent on a website. This results in a gap between the final recommendation objective and the classical setup where recommendation candidates are evaluated by their coherence with past user behavior, by predicting either the missing entries in the user-item matrix, or the most likely next event. To bridge this gap, we optimize a recommendation policy for the task of increasing the desired outcome versus the organic user behavior. We show this is equivalent to learning to predict recommendation outcomes under a fully random recommendation policy. To this end, we propose a new domain adaptation algorithm that learns from logged data containing outcomes from a biased recommendation policy and predicts recommendation outcomes according to random exposure. We compare our method against state-of-the-art factorization methods, in addition to new approaches of causal recommendation and show significant improvements.