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123 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2019

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Accurate Vision-based Manipulation through Contact Reasoning

Kloss, A., Bauza, M., Wu, J., Tenenbaum, J. B., Rodriguez, A., Bohg, J.

In International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Submitted

Abstract
Planning contact interactions is one of the core challenges of many robotic tasks. Optimizing contact locations while taking dynamics into account is computationally costly and in only partially observed environments, executing contact-based tasks often suffers from low accuracy. We present an approach that addresses these two challenges for the problem of vision-based manipulation. First, we propose to disentangle contact from motion optimization. Thereby, we improve planning efficiency by focusing computation on promising contact locations. Second, we use a hybrid approach for perception and state estimation that combines neural networks with a physically meaningful state representation. In simulation and real-world experiments on the task of planar pushing, we show that our method is more efficient and achieves a higher manipulation accuracy than previous vision-based approaches.

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Video link (url) [BibTex]

2019

am Kloss, A., Bauza, M., Wu, J., Tenenbaum, J. B., Rodriguez, A., Bohg, J. Accurate Vision-based Manipulation through Contact Reasoning In International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Submitted

Video link (url) [BibTex]

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Learning Latent Space Dynamics for Tactile Servoing

Sutanto, G., Ratliff, N., Sundaralingam, B., Chebotar, Y., Su, Z., Handa, A., Fox, D.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2019, IEEE, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Accepted

am

pdf video [BibTex]

am Sutanto, G., Ratliff, N., Sundaralingam, B., Chebotar, Y., Su, Z., Handa, A., Fox, D. Learning Latent Space Dynamics for Tactile Servoing In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2019, IEEE, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Accepted

pdf video [BibTex]

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Elastic modulus affects adhesive strength of gecko-inspired synthetics in variable temperature and humidity

Mitchell, CT, Drotlef, D, Dayan, CB, Sitti, M, Stark, AY

In INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, pages: E372-E372, OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC JOURNALS DEPT, 2001 EVANS RD, CARY, NC 27513 USA, March 2019 (inproceedings)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Mitchell, CT, Drotlef, D, Dayan, CB, Sitti, M, Stark, AY Elastic modulus affects adhesive strength of gecko-inspired synthetics in variable temperature and humidity In INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, pages: E372-E372, OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC JOURNALS DEPT, 2001 EVANS RD, CARY, NC 27513 USA, March 2019 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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X-ray Optics Fabrication Using Unorthodox Approaches

Sanli, U., Baluktsian, M., Ceylan, H., Sitti, M., Weigand, M., Schütz, G., Keskinbora, K.

Bulletin of the American Physical Society, APS, 2019 (article)

mms pi

[BibTex]

mms pi Sanli, U., Baluktsian, M., Ceylan, H., Sitti, M., Weigand, M., Schütz, G., Keskinbora, K. X-ray Optics Fabrication Using Unorthodox Approaches Bulletin of the American Physical Society, APS, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Microrobotics and Microorganisms: Biohybrid Autonomous Cellular Robots

Alapan, Y., Yasa, O., Yigit, B., Yasa, I. C., Erkoc, P., Sitti, M.

Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Alapan, Y., Yasa, O., Yigit, B., Yasa, I. C., Erkoc, P., Sitti, M. Microrobotics and Microorganisms: Biohybrid Autonomous Cellular Robots Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Tailored Magnetic Springs for Shape-Memory Alloy Actuated Mechanisms in Miniature Robots

Woodward, M. A., Sitti, M.

IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 35, 2019 (article)

Abstract
Animals can incorporate large numbers of actuators because of the characteristics of muscles; whereas, robots cannot, as typical motors tend to be large, heavy, and inefficient. However, shape-memory alloys (SMA), materials that contract during heating because of change in their crystal structure, provide another option. SMA, though, is unidirectional and therefore requires an additional force to reset (extend) the actuator, which is typically provided by springs or antagonistic actuation. These strategies, however, tend to limit the actuator's work output and functionality as their force-displacement relationships typically produce increasing resistive force with limited variability. In contrast, magnetic springs-composed of permanent magnets, where the interaction force between magnets mimics a spring force-have much more variable force-displacement relationships and scale well with SMA. However, as of yet, no method for designing magnetic springs for SMA-actuators has been demonstrated. Therefore, in this paper, we present a new methodology to tailor magnetic springs to the characteristics of these actuators, with experimental results both for the device and robot-integrated SMA-actuators. We found magnetic building blocks, based on sets of permanent magnets, which are well-suited to SMAs and have the potential to incorporate features such as holding force, state transitioning, friction minimization, auto-alignment, and self-mounting. We show magnetic springs that vary by more than 3 N in 750 $\mu$m and two SMA-actuated devices that allow the MultiMo-Bat to reach heights of up to 4.5 m without, and 3.6 m with, integrated gliding airfoils. Our results demonstrate the potential of this methodology to add previously impossible functionality to smart material actuators. We anticipate this methodology will inspire broader consideration of the use of magnetic springs in miniature robots and further study of the potential of tailored magnetic springs throughout mechanical systems.

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DOI [BibTex]

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Magnetically Actuated Soft Capsule Endoscope for Fine-Needle Biopsy

Son, D., Gilbert, H., Sitti, M.

Soft robotics, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor New …, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Son, D., Gilbert, H., Sitti, M. Magnetically Actuated Soft Capsule Endoscope for Fine-Needle Biopsy Soft robotics, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor New …, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Thrust and Hydrodynamic Efficiency of the Bundled Flagella

Danis, U., Rasooli, R., Chen, C., Dur, O., Sitti, M., Pekkan, K.

Micromachines, 10, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

pi Danis, U., Rasooli, R., Chen, C., Dur, O., Sitti, M., Pekkan, K. Thrust and Hydrodynamic Efficiency of the Bundled Flagella Micromachines, 10, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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The near and far of a pair of magnetic capillary disks

Koens, L., Wang, W., Sitti, M., Lauga, E.

Soft Matter, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

pi Koens, L., Wang, W., Sitti, M., Lauga, E. The near and far of a pair of magnetic capillary disks Soft Matter, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Multifarious Transit Gates for Programmable Delivery of Bio‐functionalized Matters

Hu, X., Torati, S. R., Kim, H., Yoon, J., Lim, B., Kim, K., Sitti, M., Kim, C.

Small, Wiley Online Library, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Hu, X., Torati, S. R., Kim, H., Yoon, J., Lim, B., Kim, K., Sitti, M., Kim, C. Multifarious Transit Gates for Programmable Delivery of Bio‐functionalized Matters Small, Wiley Online Library, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Multi-functional soft-bodied jellyfish-like swimming

Ren, Z., Hu, W., Dong, X., Sitti, M.

Nature communications, 10, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

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Welcome to Progress in Biomedical Engineering

Sitti, M.

Progress in Biomedical Engineering, 1, IOP Publishing, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

pi Sitti, M. Welcome to Progress in Biomedical Engineering Progress in Biomedical Engineering, 1, IOP Publishing, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Mechanics of a pressure-controlled adhesive membrane for soft robotic gripping on curved surfaces

Song, S., Drotlef, D., Paik, J., Majidi, C., Sitti, M.

Extreme Mechanics Letters, Elsevier, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

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Graphene oxide synergistically enhances antibiotic efficacy in Vancomycin resistance Staphylococcus aureus

Singh, V., Kumar, V., Kashyap, S., Singh, A. V., Kishore, V., Sitti, M., Saxena, P. S., Srivastava, A.

ACS Applied Bio Materials, ACS Publications, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Singh, V., Kumar, V., Kashyap, S., Singh, A. V., Kishore, V., Sitti, M., Saxena, P. S., Srivastava, A. Graphene oxide synergistically enhances antibiotic efficacy in Vancomycin resistance Staphylococcus aureus ACS Applied Bio Materials, ACS Publications, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Review of emerging concepts in nanotoxicology: opportunities and challenges for safer nanomaterial design

Singh, A. V., Laux, P., Luch, A., Sudrik, C., Wiehr, S., Wild, A., Santamauro, G., Bill, J., Sitti, M.

Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Singh, A. V., Laux, P., Luch, A., Sudrik, C., Wiehr, S., Wild, A., Santamauro, G., Bill, J., Sitti, M. Review of emerging concepts in nanotoxicology: opportunities and challenges for safer nanomaterial design Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Multifunctional and biodegradable self-propelled protein motors

Pena-Francesch, A., Giltinan, J., Sitti, M.

Nature communications, 10, Nature Publishing Group, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

pi Pena-Francesch, A., Giltinan, J., Sitti, M. Multifunctional and biodegradable self-propelled protein motors Nature communications, 10, Nature Publishing Group, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Cohesive self-organization of mobile microrobotic swarms

Yigit, B., Alapan, Y., Sitti, M.

arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.05856, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

pi Yigit, B., Alapan, Y., Sitti, M. Cohesive self-organization of mobile microrobotic swarms arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.05856, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Automated Generation of Reactive Programs from Human Demonstration for Orchestration of Robot Behaviors

Berenz, V., Bjelic, A., Mainprice, J.

ArXiv, 2019 (article)

Abstract
Social robots or collaborative robots that have to interact with people in a reactive way are difficult to program. This difficulty stems from the different skills required by the programmer: to provide an engaging user experience the behavior must include a sense of aesthetics while robustly operating in a continuously changing environment. The Playful framework allows composing such dynamic behaviors using a basic set of action and perception primitives. Within this framework, a behavior is encoded as a list of declarative statements corresponding to high-level sensory-motor couplings. To facilitate non-expert users to program such behaviors, we propose a Learning from Demonstration (LfD) technique that maps motion capture of humans directly to a Playful script. The approach proceeds by identifying the sensory-motor couplings that are active at each step using the Viterbi path in a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). Given these activation patterns, binary classifiers called evaluations are trained to associate activations to sensory data. Modularity is increased by clustering the sensory-motor couplings, leading to a hierarchical tree structure. The novelty of the proposed approach is that the learned behavior is encoded not in terms of trajectories in a task space, but as couplings between sensory information and high-level motor actions. This provides advantages in terms of behavioral generalization and reactivity displayed by the robot.

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Support Video link (url) [BibTex]

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Mobile microrobots for active therapeutic delivery

Erkoc, P., Yasa, I. C., Ceylan, H., Yasa, O., Alapan, Y., Sitti, M.

Advanced Therapeutics, Wiley Online Library, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Erkoc, P., Yasa, I. C., Ceylan, H., Yasa, O., Alapan, Y., Sitti, M. Mobile microrobots for active therapeutic delivery Advanced Therapeutics, Wiley Online Library, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Shape-encoded dynamic assembly of mobile micromachines

Alapan, Y., Yigit, B., Beker, O., Demirörs, A. F., Sitti, M.

Nature, 18, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Alapan, Y., Yigit, B., Beker, O., Demirörs, A. F., Sitti, M. Shape-encoded dynamic assembly of mobile micromachines Nature, 18, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Microfluidics Integrated Lithography‐Free Nanophotonic Biosensor for the Detection of Small Molecules

Sreekanth, K. V., Sreejith, S., Alapan, Y., Sitti, M., Lim, C. T., Singh, R.

Advanced Optical Materials, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Sreekanth, K. V., Sreejith, S., Alapan, Y., Sitti, M., Lim, C. T., Singh, R. Microfluidics Integrated Lithography‐Free Nanophotonic Biosensor for the Detection of Small Molecules Advanced Optical Materials, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Gecko-inspired composite microfibers for reversible adhesion on smooth and rough surfaces

Drotlef, D., Dayan, C., Sitti, M.

In INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, pages: E58-E58, OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC JOURNALS DEPT, 2001 EVANS RD, CARY, NC 27513 USA, 2019 (inproceedings)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Drotlef, D., Dayan, C., Sitti, M. Gecko-inspired composite microfibers for reversible adhesion on smooth and rough surfaces In INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, pages: E58-E58, OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC JOURNALS DEPT, 2001 EVANS RD, CARY, NC 27513 USA, 2019 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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ENGINEERING Bio-inspired robotic collectives

Sitti, M.

Nature, 567, pages: 314-315, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, England, 2019 (article)

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[BibTex]

pi Sitti, M. ENGINEERING Bio-inspired robotic collectives Nature, 567, pages: 314-315, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, England, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Peptide-Induced Biomineralization of Tin Oxide (SnO2) Nanoparticles for Antibacterial Applications

Singh, A. V., Jahnke, T., Xiao, Y., Wang, S., Yu, Y., David, H., Richter, G., Laux, P., Luch, A., Srivastava, A., Saxena, P. S., Bill, J., Sitti, M.

Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology, 19, American Scientific Publishers, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Singh, A. V., Jahnke, T., Xiao, Y., Wang, S., Yu, Y., David, H., Richter, G., Laux, P., Luch, A., Srivastava, A., Saxena, P. S., Bill, J., Sitti, M. Peptide-Induced Biomineralization of Tin Oxide (SnO2) Nanoparticles for Antibacterial Applications Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology, 19, American Scientific Publishers, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Electromechanical actuation of dielectric liquid crystal elastomers for soft robotics

Davidson, Z., Shahsavan, H., Guo, Y., Hines, L., Xia, Y., Yang, S., Sitti, M.

Bulletin of the American Physical Society, APS, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Davidson, Z., Shahsavan, H., Guo, Y., Hines, L., Xia, Y., Yang, S., Sitti, M. Electromechanical actuation of dielectric liquid crystal elastomers for soft robotics Bulletin of the American Physical Society, APS, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

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Learning to Navigate Endoscopic Capsule Robots

Turan, M., Almalioglu, Y., Gilbert, H. B., Mahmood, F., Durr, N. J., Araujo, H., Sarı, A. E., Ajay, A., Sitti, M.

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 4, 2019 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Turan, M., Almalioglu, Y., Gilbert, H. B., Mahmood, F., Durr, N. J., Araujo, H., Sarı, A. E., Ajay, A., Sitti, M. Learning to Navigate Endoscopic Capsule Robots IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 4, 2019 (article)

[BibTex]

2007

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Towards Machine Learning of Motor Skills

Peters, J., Schaal, S., Schölkopf, B.

In Proceedings of Autonome Mobile Systeme (AMS), pages: 138-144, (Editors: K Berns and T Luksch), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Autonomous robots that can adapt to novel situations has been a long standing vision of robotics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive sciences. Early approaches to this goal during the heydays of artificial intelligence research in the late 1980s, however, made it clear that an approach purely based on reasoning or human insights would not be able to model all the perceptuomotor tasks that a robot should fulfill. Instead, new hope was put in the growing wake of machine learning that promised fully adaptive control algorithms which learn both by observation and trial-and-error. However, to date, learning techniques have yet to fulfill this promise as only few methods manage to scale into the high-dimensional domains of manipulator robotics, or even the new upcoming trend of humanoid robotics, and usually scaling was only achieved in precisely pre-structured domains. In this paper, we investigate the ingredients for a general approach to motor skill learning in order to get one step closer towards human-like performance. For doing so, we study two ma jor components for such an approach, i.e., firstly, a theoretically well-founded general approach to representing the required control structures for task representation and execution and, secondly, appropriate learning algorithms which can be applied in this setting.

am ei

PDF DOI [BibTex]

2007

am ei Peters, J., Schaal, S., Schölkopf, B. Towards Machine Learning of Motor Skills In Proceedings of Autonome Mobile Systeme (AMS), pages: 138-144, (Editors: K Berns and T Luksch), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Reinforcement Learning for Optimal Control of Arm Movements

Theodorou, E., Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the 37st Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience., Neuroscience, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Every day motor behavior consists of a plethora of challenging motor skills from discrete movements such as reaching and throwing to rhythmic movements such as walking, drumming and running. How this plethora of motor skills can be learned remains an open question. In particular, is there any unifying computa-tional framework that could model the learning process of this variety of motor behaviors and at the same time be biologically plausible? In this work we aim to give an answer to these questions by providing a computational framework that unifies the learning mechanism of both rhythmic and discrete movements under optimization criteria, i.e., in a non-supervised trial-and-error fashion. Our suggested framework is based on Reinforcement Learning, which is mostly considered as too costly to be a plausible mechanism for learning com-plex limb movement. However, recent work on reinforcement learning with pol-icy gradients combined with parameterized movement primitives allows novel and more efficient algorithms. By using the representational power of such mo-tor primitives we show how rhythmic motor behaviors such as walking, squash-ing and drumming as well as discrete behaviors like reaching and grasping can be learned with biologically plausible algorithms. Using extensive simulations and by using different reward functions we provide results that support the hy-pothesis that Reinforcement Learning could be a viable candidate for motor learning of human motor behavior when other learning methods like supervised learning are not feasible.

am ei

[BibTex]

am ei Theodorou, E., Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement Learning for Optimal Control of Arm Movements In Abstracts of the 37st Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience., Neuroscience, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Reinforcement learning by reward-weighted regression for operational space control

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 745-750, ICML, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Many robot control problems of practical importance, including operational space control, can be reformulated as immediate reward reinforcement learning problems. However, few of the known optimization or reinforcement learning algorithms can be used in online learning control for robots, as they are either prohibitively slow, do not scale to interesting domains of complex robots, or require trying out policies generated by random search, which are infeasible for a physical system. Using a generalization of the EM-base reinforcement learning framework suggested by Dayan & Hinton, we reduce the problem of learning with immediate rewards to a reward-weighted regression problem with an adaptive, integrated reward transformation for faster convergence. The resulting algorithm is efficient, learns smoothly without dangerous jumps in solution space, and works well in applications of complex high degree-of-freedom robots.

am ei

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

am ei Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning by reward-weighted regression for operational space control In Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 745-750, ICML, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Policy gradient methods for machine learning

Peters, J., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 14th INFORMS Conference of the Applied Probability Society, pages: 97-98, Eindhoven, Netherlands, July 9-11, 2007, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present an in-depth survey of policy gradient methods as they are used in the machine learning community for optimizing parameterized, stochastic control policies in Markovian systems with respect to the expected reward. Despite having been developed separately in the reinforcement learning literature, policy gradient methods employ likelihood ratio gradient estimators as also suggested in the stochastic simulation optimization community. It is well-known that this approach to policy gradient estimation traditionally suffers from three drawbacks, i.e., large variance, a strong dependence on baseline functions and a inefficient gradient descent. In this talk, we will present a series of recent results which tackles each of these problems. The variance of the gradient estimation can be reduced significantly through recently introduced techniques such as optimal baselines, compatible function approximations and all-action gradients. However, as even the analytically obtainable policy gradients perform unnaturally slow, it required the step from ÔvanillaÕ policy gradient methods towards natural policy gradients in order to overcome the inefficiency of the gradient descent. This development resulted into the Natural Actor-Critic architecture which can be shown to be very efficient in application to motor primitive learning for robotics.

am ei

[BibTex]

am ei Peters, J., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Policy gradient methods for machine learning In Proceedings of the 14th INFORMS Conference of the Applied Probability Society, pages: 97-98, Eindhoven, Netherlands, July 9-11, 2007, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Policy Learning for Motor Skills

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP), pages: 233-242, (Editors: Ishikawa, M. , K. Doya, H. Miyamoto, T. Yamakawa), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Policy learning which allows autonomous robots to adapt to novel situations has been a long standing vision of robotics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive sciences. However, to date, learning techniques have yet to fulfill this promise as only few methods manage to scale into the high-dimensional domains of manipulator robotics, or even the new upcoming trend of humanoid robotics, and usually scaling was only achieved in precisely pre-structured domains. In this paper, we investigate the ingredients for a general approach policy learning with the goal of an application to motor skill refinement in order to get one step closer towards human-like performance. For doing so, we study two major components for such an approach, i.e., firstly, we study policy learning algorithms which can be applied in the general setting of motor skill learning, and, secondly, we study a theoretically well-founded general approach to representing the required control structures for task representation and execution.

am ei

PDF DOI [BibTex]

am ei Peters, J., Schaal, S. Policy Learning for Motor Skills In Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP), pages: 233-242, (Editors: Ishikawa, M. , K. Doya, H. Miyamoto, T. Yamakawa), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Reinforcement learning for operational space control

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages: 2111-2116, IEEE Computer Society, ICRA, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
While operational space control is of essential importance for robotics and well-understood from an analytical point of view, it can be prohibitively hard to achieve accurate control in face of modeling errors, which are inevitable in complex robots, e.g., humanoid robots. In such cases, learning control methods can offer an interesting alternative to analytical control algorithms. However, the resulting supervised learning problem is ill-defined as it requires to learn an inverse mapping of a usually redundant system, which is well known to suffer from the property of non-convexity of the solution space, i.e., the learning system could generate motor commands that try to steer the robot into physically impossible configurations. The important insight that many operational space control algorithms can be reformulated as optimal control problems, however, allows addressing this inverse learning problem in the framework of reinforcement learning. However, few of the known optimization or reinforcement learning algorithms can be used in online learning control for robots, as they are either prohibitively slow, do not scale to interesting domains of complex robots, or require trying out policies generated by random search, which are infeasible for a physical system. Using a generalization of the EM-based reinforcement learning framework suggested by Dayan & Hinton, we reduce the problem of learning with immediate rewards to a reward-weighted regression problem with an adaptive, integrated reward transformation for faster convergence. The resulting algorithm is efficient, learns smoothly without dangerous jumps in solution space, and works well in applications of complex high degree-of-freedom robots.

am ei

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

am ei Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning for operational space control In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages: 2111-2116, IEEE Computer Society, ICRA, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Relative Entropy Policy Search

Peters, J.

CLMC Technical Report: TR-CLMC-2007-2, Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab, Los Angeles, CA, 2007, clmc (techreport)

Abstract
This technical report describes a cute idea of how to create new policy search approaches. It directly relates to the Natural Actor-Critic methods but allows the derivation of one shot solutions. Future work may include the application to interesting problems.

am ei

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

am ei Peters, J. Relative Entropy Policy Search CLMC Technical Report: TR-CLMC-2007-2, Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab, Los Angeles, CA, 2007, clmc (techreport)

PDF link (url) [BibTex]

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Using reward-weighted regression for reinforcement learning of task space control

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Approximate Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning, pages: 262-267, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 1-5, 2007, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper, we evaluate different versions from the three main kinds of model-free policy gradient methods, i.e., finite difference gradients, `vanilla' policy gradients and natural policy gradients. Each of these methods is first presented in its simple form and subsequently refined and optimized. By carrying out numerous experiments on the cart pole regulator benchmark we aim to provide a useful baseline for future research on parameterized policy search algorithms. Portable C++ code is provided for both plant and algorithms; thus, the results in this paper can be reevaluated, reused and new algorithms can be inserted with ease.

am ei

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

am ei Peters, J., Schaal, S. Using reward-weighted regression for reinforcement learning of task space control In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Approximate Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning, pages: 262-267, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 1-5, 2007, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Evaluation of Policy Gradient Methods and Variants on the Cart-Pole Benchmark

Riedmiller, M., Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Approximate Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning, pages: 254-261, ADPRL, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper, we evaluate different versions from the three main kinds of model-free policy gradient methods, i.e., finite difference gradients, `vanilla' policy gradients and natural policy gradients. Each of these methods is first presented in its simple form and subsequently refined and optimized. By carrying out numerous experiments on the cart pole regulator benchmark we aim to provide a useful baseline for future research on parameterized policy search algorithms. Portable C++ code is provided for both plant and algorithms; thus, the results in this paper can be reevaluated, reused and new algorithms can be inserted with ease.

am ei

PDF [BibTex]

am ei Riedmiller, M., Peters, J., Schaal, S. Evaluation of Policy Gradient Methods and Variants on the Cart-Pole Benchmark In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Approximate Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning, pages: 254-261, ADPRL, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Space exploration-towards bio-inspired climbing robots

Menon, C., Murphy, M., Sitti, M., Lan, N.

INTECH Open Access Publisher, 2007 (misc)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Menon, C., Murphy, M., Sitti, M., Lan, N. Space exploration-towards bio-inspired climbing robots INTECH Open Access Publisher, 2007 (misc)

[BibTex]

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Bacterial flagella-based propulsion and on/off motion control of microscale objects

Behkam, B., Sitti, M.

Applied Physics Letters, 90(2):023902, AIP, 2007 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Behkam, B., Sitti, M. Bacterial flagella-based propulsion and on/off motion control of microscale objects Applied Physics Letters, 90(2):023902, AIP, 2007 (article)

[BibTex]

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A strategy for vision-based controlled pushing of microparticles

Lynch, N. A., Onal, C., Schuster, E., Sitti, M.

In Robotics and Automation, 2007 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 1413-1418, 2007 (inproceedings)

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[BibTex]

pi Lynch, N. A., Onal, C., Schuster, E., Sitti, M. A strategy for vision-based controlled pushing of microparticles In Robotics and Automation, 2007 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 1413-1418, 2007 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Friction of partially embedded vertically aligned carbon nanofibers inside elastomers

Aksak, B., Sitti, M., Cassell, A., Li, J., Meyyappan, M., Callen, P.

Applied Physics Letters, 91(6):061906, AIP, 2007 (article)

pi

[BibTex]

pi Aksak, B., Sitti, M., Cassell, A., Li, J., Meyyappan, M., Callen, P. Friction of partially embedded vertically aligned carbon nanofibers inside elastomers Applied Physics Letters, 91(6):061906, AIP, 2007 (article)

[BibTex]