This work tackles force control for contact-rich manipulation tasks with rigid robots using RL.
problem Challenges in working with real robotic hardware, especially position-controlled robots.
method Combines RL with traditional force control techniques, implementing parallel position/force control and admittance control.
result Validated methods on both simulation and real robot (UR3 e-series) for force control.
DIGIT is a low-cost tactile sensor for in-hand manipulation.
problem Difficulty in sensing contact forces limits robotic manipulation.
method DIGIT miniaturizes and improves a vision-based tactile sensor.
result DIGIT enables better control of interactions with the environment.
This paper presents the Variation Network (VarNet), a generative model providing means to manipulate the high-level attributes of a given input. The originality of our approach is that VarNet is not only capable of handling pre-defined attributes but can also learn the relevant attributes of the dataset by itself. Thes…
Robot learns to manipulate objects using multiple geometric representations.
problem Manipulation tasks are poorly represented by Cartesian coordinates.
method Extends Gaussian distributions on Riemannian manifolds to analyze demonstrations, formulating the problem as an optimal control problem.
result Robot can generalize manipulation tasks using multiple geometric representations.
Method interprets GAN latent space via latent variable correlation analysis.
problem Understanding the inner workings of GANs.
method Analyzing correlation between latent variables and semantic contents in generated images.
result A method for controllable semantic content generation in GANs.
Paper presents a new port-Hamiltonian model for vehicle manipulators.
problem Complex mechanical systems' energy flow and conservation.
method Derives port-Hamiltonian dynamics from Hamiltonian reduction theory.
result Establishes mathematical equivalence with existing formulations.
In financial markets, liquidity is not constant over time but exhibits strong seasonal patterns. In this article we consider a limit order book model that allows for time-dependent, deterministic depth and resilience of the book and determine optimal portfolio liquidation strategies. In a first model variant, we propos…
Motion planning and control are key problems in a collection of robotic applications including the design of autonomous agile vehicles and of minimalist manipulators. These problems can be accurately formalized within the language of affine connections and of geometric control theory. In this paper we overview recent r…
Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has emerged as a powerful control technique in robotic science. In contrast to control theory, DRL is more robust in the thorough exploration of the environment. This capability of DRL generates more human-like behaviour and intelligence when applied to the robots. To explore this capa…
StealthRank subtly boosts LLM rankings without detectable anomalies.
problem Adversarial manipulation of LLM-driven ranking systems.
method Energy-based optimization with Langevin dynamics for stealthy prompt generation.
result StealthRank outperforms existing methods in covertly boosting rankings.
We use reinforcement learning (RL) to learn dexterous in-hand manipulation policies which can perform vision-based object reorientation on a physical Shadow Dexterous Hand. The training is performed in a simulated environment in which we randomize many of the physical properties of the system like friction coefficients…
Real-life control tasks involve matters of various substances---rigid or soft bodies, liquid, gas---each with distinct physical behaviors. This poses challenges to traditional rigid-body physics engines. Particle-based simulators have been developed to model the dynamics of these complex scenes; however, relying on app…
The paper formalizes how concepts are encoded in text-guided generative models and provides a method to manipulate them.
problem Encoding and manipulating concepts in text-guided generative models.
method Formalizing concepts as subspaces of a representation space, developing algebraic manipulation methods.
result The ability to manipulate concepts in generative models through algebraic operations on the representation.
Physics-informed GCRL tackles sparse feedback learning with hybrid dynamics.
problem Sparse feedback learning with high-dimensional, hybrid, or contact-dependent dynamics.
method Introduces physics-informed inductive biases into goal-conditioned value learning.
result Contact-rich manipulation tasks degrade existing Pi-GCRL methods.
Order matching systems form the backbone of modern equity exchanges, used by millions of investors daily. Thus, their operation is strictly controlled through numerous regulatory directives to ensure that markets are fair and transparent. Despite these efforts, market manipulation remains an open problem. In this work,…
RL agent outperforms model-based approach in detecting price manipulation.
problem Detecting and exploiting price manipulation opportunities.
method Compared model-free RL with model-based approach in a market with Almgren-Chriss framework.
result RL consistently outperforms model-based approach, especially with noisy parameter estimates.
The Interbank Offered Rate is a vital benchmark interest rate in the financial markets of every country to which financial contracts are tied. In the light of the recent LIBOR manipulation incident, this paper seeks to address the fear that Interbank Offered Rate are entirely controlled by the bank. The paper will focu…
New method for learning indirectly through control variables.
problem Learning relationships when direct manipulation of variables is impossible.
method Study of indirect active learning under nonparametric models with fixed budget.
result Minimax rates for estimating relationships between variables.
SOM-VQ tokenizes discrete models with semantic structure and navigable topology.
problem Lack of semantic structure in vector quantized representations limits interpretable human control.
method Combines vector quantization with Self-Organizing Maps to learn discrete codebooks with explicit topology.
result SOM-VQ produces more learnable token sequences and provides an explicit navigable geometry in code space.
New model learning objective improves continuous control tasks.
problem Challenges in solving continuous control tasks using model-based reinforcement learning.
method Derived a novel value-aware model learning objective and identified and addressed stale value estimates issue.
result Value-aware objectives can be successfully deployed in solving continuous control tasks without tuning hyper-parameters.
New method for PKM inverse dynamics second derivatives efficiently.
problem Efficient computation of PKM inverse dynamics second derivatives.
method Recursive Lie-group formulation for serial robots adapted to PKM topology.
result Efficient computation of second time derivatives for PKM.
Data poisoning is an attack on machine learning models wherein the attacker adds examples to the training set to manipulate the behavior of the model at test time. This paper explores poisoning attacks on neural nets. The proposed attacks use "clean-labels"; they don't require the attacker to have any control over the …
We study a generalized setup for learning from demonstration to build an agent that can manipulate novel objects in unseen scenarios by looking at only a single video of human demonstration from a third-person perspective. To accomplish this goal, our agent should not only learn to understand the intent of the demonstr…
CausalWorld benchmarks robotic manipulation tasks with causal structure for transfer learning.
problem Challenges in transferring learned skills to new robotic manipulation environments.
method Proposes a simulation-based benchmark with a combinatorial family of tasks.
result Demonstrates the feasibility of tasks in the benchmark and provides baseline results.
We study data poisoning attacks in the online setting where training items arrive sequentially, and the attacker may perturb the current item to manipulate online learning. Importantly, the attacker has no knowledge of future training items nor the data generating distribution. We formulate online data poisoning attack…
Self-guidance controls image generation by extracting properties from diffusion model representations.
problem Generating images from text descriptions is challenging due to the complexity of visual details.
method Self-guidance uses internal representations of diffusion models to control image generation.
result Properties like object shape, location, and appearance can be extracted and used to steer image generation.
The vulnerability of deep neural networks to adversarial attacks has been widely demonstrated (e.g., adversarial example attacks). Traditional attacks perform unstructured pixel-wise perturbation to fool the classifier. An alternative approach is to have perturbations in the latent space. However, such perturbations ar…
In this paper, we study the problem of learning vision-based dynamic manipulation skills using a scalable reinforcement learning approach. We study this problem in the context of grasping, a longstanding challenge in robotic manipulation. In contrast to static learning behaviors that choose a grasp point and then execu…
Online trading platforms manipulate profits and losses, causing 82% of retail traders to lose money.
problem Manipulation of online trading platforms leading to financial losses for retail traders.
method Independent recording of trade details using REST API responses, comparison with broker reviews.
result 82% of retail traders lose money due to platform technical issues.
Variational autoencoders (VAEs) are widely used deep generative models capable of learning unsupervised latent representations of data. Such representations are often difficult to interpret or control. We consider the problem of unsupervised learning of features correlated to specific labels in a dataset. We propose a …
Generic generation and manipulation of text is challenging and has limited success compared to recent deep generative modeling in visual domain. This paper aims at generating plausible natural language sentences, whose attributes are dynamically controlled by learning disentangled latent representations with designated…
HiDe learns hierarchical control for complex tasks by separating planning and control.
problem Solving long horizon control tasks with generalization to unseen scenarios.
method Functional decomposition of state-action spaces, RL-based planner, modular transfer of policy layers.
result Generalizes across unseen test environments and scales to longer horizons.
We describe an optimal adversarial attack formulation against autoregressive time series forecast using Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR). In this threat model, the environment evolves according to a dynamical system; an autoregressive model observes the current environment state and predicts its future values; an attac…
A framework disentangles controllable objects from visual signals for improved RL.
problem Improving sample efficiency and game performance in vision-based RL.
method Action-conditioned video prediction to disentangle controllable objects.
result Improved sample efficiency and game performance in Atari games.
Tactile information is important for gripping, stable grasp, and in-hand manipulation, yet the complexity of tactile data prevents widespread use of such sensors. We make use of an unsupervised learning algorithm that transforms the complex tactile data into a compact, latent representation without the need to record g…
Adversaries manipulate wireless power allocation to reduce user rates.
problem Adversaries exploit deep learning for power control to decrease communication rates.
method Adversaries craft perturbations to inputs of a DNN to minimize power allocation.
result Adversarial attacks are highly effective and robust to uncertainties.
Deep generative models can emulate the perceptual properties of complex image datasets, providing a latent representation of the data. However, manipulating such representation to perform meaningful and controllable transformations in the data space remains challenging without some form of supervision. While previous w…
A new reinforcement learning method uses mutual information to encourage agents to control their environment.
problem Learning from internal drives instead of external rewards.
method Formulate an intrinsic objective as mutual information between goal states and controllable states, derive a surrogate objective for efficient optimization.
result Demonstrated the efficacy of the approach in robotic tasks.
Study online learner attacks by manipulating labels, revealing critical thresholds.
problem Adversarial attacks on online learners, especially label manipulation.
method Control-theoretical perspective, theoretical analysis, empirical study.
result Discontinuous transition in learner's accuracy occurs at a critical threshold.
Experience replay is an important technique for addressing sample-inefficiency in deep reinforcement learning (RL), but faces difficulty in learning from binary and sparse rewards due to disproportionately few successful experiences in the replay buffer. Hindsight experience replay (HER) was recently proposed to tackle…
We propose a novel approach for generating unrestricted adversarial examples by manipulating fine-grained aspects of image generation. Unlike existing unrestricted attacks that typically hand-craft geometric transformations, we learn stylistic and stochastic modifications leveraging state-of-the-art generative models. …
AI learns market manipulation through simulation, suggesting regulation.
problem Regulating AI to prevent market manipulation.
method Used a genetic algorithm in an artificial market simulation.
result AI discovered market manipulation as an optimal strategy.
In this paper, we show synchronization for a group of output passive agents that communicate with each other according to an underlying communication graph to achieve a common goal. We propose a distributed event-triggered control framework that will guarantee synchronization and considerably decrease the required comm…
Data-driven models are subject to model errors due to limited and noisy training data. Key to the application of such models in safety-critical domains is the quantification of their model error. Gaussian processes provide such a measure and uniform error bounds have been derived, which allow safe control based on thes…
Deep learning models generate music with arbitrary control strategies.
problem Lack of efficient methods for generating music with arbitrary control.
method Deep generative models learn to navigate arbitrary sound spaces.
result Deep learning enables high-quality, arbitrary sound synthesis.
The paper analyzes how leverage affects manipulation in event-linked markets, offering new insights into regulation.
problem Manipulation and insider information in leveraged event-linked markets.
method Develops a two-axis manipulation taxonomy and analyzes leverage's effects on market-price and outcome manipulation.
result Leverage scales market-price manipulation linearly but shifts the cost-benefit threshold for outcome manipulation.
The paper proposes a method to learn from both simulation and real-world data.
problem Training autonomous systems in simulation and applying them to real-world environments.
method Balancing samples from simulation and real-world data using a replay buffer.
result The method achieves better performance in real-world tasks compared to training only in simulation.
New diffusion models improve counterfactual image generation with semantic control.
problem Challenges in preserving identity, maintaining quality, and ensuring causal model faithfulness in counterfactual image generation.
method Integrates semantic representations into diffusion models through Pearlian causality, introducing spatial, semantic, and dynamic abduction.
result Demonstrates high-level semantic identity preservation and principled trade-offs between faithful causal control and identity preservation.