Modelling diffusion-controlled kinetics in equilibrium and driven alloys

Summary We introduce a very simple model for thermally activated atomic migration on a lattice, and several techniques to handle it. For thermodynamical systems, the model can be used for simulating decomposition paths taking into account relevant metallurgical features. Close to equilibrium, the simplest mean-field approximation of the model can be linearized with respect to the departure from equilibrium; one then gets a microscopic interpretation of classical phenomenological coefficients, such as mobility, interfacial transfer coefficient, rate constants for the coupled relaxation of concentration and order fields. Further away from the equilibrium, the nonlinearities can be taken into account in a consistent way. For driven alloys, i.e. alloys submitted to external forcing, forced atomic migration is added to the model and new features emerge: the model is supported by several experimental results some of which confirmed its predictions a posteriori.     

Existence of discrete-time LQG-controllers

Existence results for the LQG-controller are investigated. An infimal Riccati equation based controller may potentially give closed loop eigenvalues on the unit circle. Assuming left and right invertibility it is shown that there exists an optimal controller if and only if the Riccati equation based controller stabilizes the closed loop system after removal of all its unobservable and uncontrollable modes. Furthermore this reduced controller is the optimal controller, and its transfer function is unique. This existence condition is a considerable simplification of the more general geometric condition recently derived by Trentelman and Stoorvogel.     

Development and implementation of a NURBS curve motion interpolator

This paper deals with the issues of development and implementation of a real-time NURBS interpolator for a six-axis robot. Using an open-architecture controller system as a testbed, a real-time NURBS curve interpolator was developed, implemented and tested. Sample runs were conducted with the resulting trajectories measured in real-time during robot motion. The resulting trajectories are analyzed, discussed and compared with those from a commonly used point-to-point approximation technique. The real-time NURBS curve interpolator's feasibility, advantages and related issues are also discussed.     

An actor-critic algorithm for constrained Markov decision processes

An actor-critic type reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed and analyzed for constrained controlled Markov decision processes. The analysis uses multiscale stochastic approximation theory and the envelope theorem' of mathematical economics.     

Best analytic approximation of rational functions of degree 2: Symmetrization of formulae of N. J. Young

Formulae, explicitly symmetric in the roots of the denominator, are derived for the best approximation to a rational function of degree 2 by an analytic function and by a function with at most one pole.     

Deterministic learning of completely resonant nonlinear wave systems with Dirichlet boundary conditions

In this paper, we investigate the approximation of completely resonant nonlinear wave systems via deterministic learning. The plants are distributed parameter systems (DPS) describing homogeneous and isotropic elastic vibrating strings with fixed endpoints. The purpose of the paper is to approximate the infinite-dimensional dynamics, rather than the parameters of the wave systems. To solve the problem, the wave systems are first transformed into finite-dimensional dynamical systems described by ordinary differential equation (ODE). The properties of the finite-dimensional systems, including the convergence of the solution, as well as the dominance of partial system dynamics according to point-wise measurements, are analyzed. Based on the properties, second, by using the deterministic learning algorithm, an approximately accurate neural network (NN) approximation of the the finite-dimensional system dynamics is achieved in a local region along the recurrent trajectories. Simulation studies are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Thermodynamics-inspired inverse halftoning viamultiple halftone images

Based on an analogy between thermodynamics and Bayesian inference,inverse halftoning was formulated using multiple halftone images based on Bayesian inference using the maximizer of the posterior marginal(MPM) estimate.Applying Monte Carlo simulation to a set of snapshots of the Q-Ising model,it was demonstrated that optimal performance is achieved around the Bayes-optimal condition within statistical uncertainty and that the performance of the Bayes-optimal solution is superior to that of the maximum-a-posteriori(MAP) estimation which is a deterministic limit of the MPM estimate.These properties were qualitatively confirmed by the mean-field theory using an infinite-range model established in statistical mechanics.Additionally,a practical and useful method was constructed using the statistical mechanical iterative method via the Bethe approximation.Numerical simulations for a 256-grayscale standard image show that Bethe approximation works as good as the MPM estimation if the parameters are set appropriately.     

抗几何失真的视频Hashing算法研究

文中提出了一种基于视频灰度直方图形状的Hashing算法,能有效抵抗各种常见的几何失真和视频处理操作.算法的鲁棒性原理如下:1)由于直方图的形状与像素位置无关,故基于直方图的视频Hashing算法能有效抵抗各种常见的几何攻击;2)由于在计算Hashing前对视频帧进行了平滑预处理,故算法对加噪攻击、模糊滤波、有损压缩等处理操作有很好的鲁棒性;3)由于计算Hashing前在时间轴上进行了低通滤波预处理,故算法能抵抗帧率变化、帧丢失等时域同步攻击.实验结果表明,所提出的Hashing算法有良好的唯一性和鲁棒性能.     

复杂场景实时目标检测方法

针对含有非平稳背景的复杂场景,提出一种基于空间混合高斯模型的实时目标检测方法.该方法以混合高斯模型作为颜色分布的统计框架,并在空间邻域中利用背景与前景隶属度之间的竞争确定像素的归属,提高了检测准确率;同时通过基于偏差均值的匹配判断和低权重模型的移除提升了混合高斯统计框架的性能,以实时地对运动目标进行准确的检测.实验结果表明,文中方法对非平稳背景有很好的适应能力,在检测准确率和运行效率上均优于其他检测方法.     

Improving human robot collaboration through Force/Torque based learning for object manipulation

Human–Robot Collaboration (HRC) is a term used to describe tasks in which robots and humans work together to achieve a goal. Unlike traditional industrial robots, collaborative robots need to be adaptive; able to alter their approach to better suit the situation and the needs of the human partner. As traditional programming techniques can struggle with the complexity required, an emerging approach is to learn a skill by observing human demonstration and imitating the motions; commonly known as Learning from Demonstration (LfD). In this work, we present a LfD methodology that combines an ensemble machine learning algorithm (i.e. Random Forest (RF)) with stochastic regression, using haptic information captured from human demonstration. The capabilities of the proposed method are evaluated using two collaborative tasks; co-manipulation of an object (where the human provides the guidance but the robot handles the objects weight) and collaborative assembly of simple interlocking parts. The proposed method is shown to be capable of imitation learning; interpreting human actions and producing equivalent robot motion across a diverse range of initial and final conditions. After verifying that ensemble machine learning can be utilised for real robotics problems, we propose a further extension utilising Weighted Random Forest (WRF) that attaches weights to each tree based on its performance. It is then shown that the WRF approach outperforms RF in HRC tasks.