Robot learns to imitate human interactions through deep learning.
problem Teaching robots to coordinate actions with human partners.
method Deep learning framework for motion embedding, prediction, and trajectory generation.
result Importance of predictive and adaptive components for successful imitation.
For robots to coexist with humans in a social world like ours, it is crucial that they possess human-like social interaction skills. Programming a robot to possess such skills is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a Multimodal Deep Q-Network (MDQN) to enable a robot to learn human-like interaction skills thr…
For a safe, natural and effective human-robot social interaction, it is essential to develop a system that allows a robot to demonstrate the perceivable responsive behaviors to complex human behaviors. We introduce the Multimodal Deep Attention Recurrent Q-Network using which the robot exhibits human-like social intera…
Robots learn intentions from multiple cues to reduce uncertainty.
problem Uncertainty in human-robot interaction for vulnerable users.
method Multimodal classifier fusion using Bayesian Independent Opinion Pool.
result Fused classifiers outperform individual modalities in accuracy and uncertainty reduction.
Robot learns from human actions to perform complex tasks.
problem Learning complex skills from interaction data with embodiment differences.
method Formulated graphical model, treated action as observed variable, used domain-dependent prior.
result Robotic planning agent can learn tool use from human observations.
Study aims to develop a humanoid robot dialogue system.
problem Current dialogue systems lack attention to non-verbal cues.
method Participated in a competition to develop a system with facial expressions and gaze control.
result Developed a humanoid robot dialogue system.
Game aims to improve social interactions for teenagers with ASD.
problem Improving social interactions for teenagers with ASD.
method Presentation of game structure, skeleton detection, and imitation learning methods.
result Game structure and support tools for skeleton detection and imitation learning presented.
Learning robot objective functions from human input has become increasingly important, but state-of-the-art techniques assume that the human's desired objective lies within the robot's hypothesis space. When this is not true, even methods that keep track of uncertainty over the objective fail because they reason about …
In this paper, we propose a framework that enables a human teacher to shape a robot behaviour by interactively providing it with unlabeled instructions. We ground the meaning of instruction signals in the task-learning process, and use them simultaneously for guiding the latter. We implement our framework as a modular …
The paper introduces a protocol for including advice in robot interaction to improve performance.
problem Improving natural language interaction between humans and robots.
method Protocol for including advice in robot interaction, evaluating on blocks world task.
result Simple advice can lead to significant performance improvements in robot interaction.
We present an approach for building an active agent that learns to segment its visual observations into individual objects by interacting with its environment in a completely self-supervised manner. The agent uses its current segmentation model to infer pixels that constitute objects and refines the segmentation model …
This research introduces an autonomous robot navigation method using reinforcement learning.
problem Improving robot navigation in complex environments.
method Deep Q Network (DQN) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) models for path planning and decision-making.
result The models enhance robot navigation ability and adaptive learning in unknown environments.
KINet learns object interactions without supervision for robotic pushing.
problem Lack of supervised data for object-centric forward prediction.
method End-to-end unsupervised framework using keypoint representation and contrastive estimation.
result Automatically generalizes to unseen scenarios and accurately predicts future states.
Material recognition enables robots to incorporate knowledge of material properties into their interactions with everyday objects. For example, material recognition opens up opportunities for clearer communication with a robot, such as "bring me the metal coffee mug", and recognizing plastic versus metal is crucial whe…
Hierarchical RL system for robotic manipulation with explainable decision-making.
problem Interpretability of robot decision-making for human operators.
method Dot-to-Dot: Hierarchical Deep Reinforcement Learning.
result Efficient learning of complex actions/states by low-level agent and interpretable high-level representation.
Learning to control robots directly based on images is a primary challenge in robotics. However, many existing reinforcement learning approaches require iteratively obtaining millions of robot samples to learn a policy, which can take significant time. In this paper, we focus on learning a realistic world model capturi…
TIDBD adapts step sizes online for better robotic predictions.
problem Choosing appropriate learning parameters for online prediction-learning.
method Temporal-Difference Incremental Delta-Bar-Delta (TIDBD) for step-size adaptation.
result TIDBD performs comparably to classic TD learning and detects sensor failures.
This thesis tackles learning reward functions from human comparative feedback.
problem Designing reward functions for complex tasks is challenging and humans often provide suboptimal demonstrations.
method Proposes learning reward functions from comparative feedback (pairwise comparisons, best-of-many choices, rankings, scaled comparisons) and active learning techniques.
result Demonstrates the effectiveness of learning reward functions from comparative feedback in various domains.
CAZSL learns to generalize physical interactions from context.
problem Designing models that can generalize over unknown objects during manipulation.
method Context-aware zero-shot learning using Siamese network architecture, embedding space masking, and regularization.
result CAZSL models can generalize to different parameters or features of interacting objects.
We address the problem of bootstrapping language acquisition for an artificial system similarly to what is observed in experiments with human infants. Our method works by associating meanings to words in manipulation tasks, as a robot interacts with objects and listens to verbal descriptions of the interactions. The mo…
Paper proposes IRL methods for limited interaction scenarios.
problem Learning with limited teacher interaction.
method Curriculum Inverse Reinforcement Learning (CIRL) and Self-Paced Inverse Reinforcement Learning (SPIRL).
result Training strategies can accelerate learning compared to random or batch methods.
New method improves smoothness of robot learning.
problem Jerky motion patterns on real robots from Deep RL exploration.
method Adapting state-dependent exploration to Deep RL algorithms with gSDE.
result Improved exploration and performance on real robots.
SocialInteractionGAN generates realistic human interactions from low-dimensional data.
problem Generating realistic human interactions from limited data.
method Adversarial architecture with a recurrent encoder-decoder generator and dual-stream discriminator.
result SocialInteractionGAN produces high-quality action sequences of interacting people.
Automates decision-making for human operators managing multiple robots.
problem Limited human operator attention when controlling multiple robots.
method Learned model of user preferences from easy settings to automatically identify the most critical robot.
result Automated decision-making can assist human operators in managing more robots than their attention allows.
Paper introduces OTR for efficient offline RL in surgical robotics.
problem Lack of annotated datasets for offline RL in surgical robotics.
method OTR algorithm using Optimal Transport to assign rewards to unlabeled trajectories.
result OTR enables efficient policy learning from large datasets without handcrafted rewards.
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.
Game teaches ASD teenagers to imitate gestures.
problem Improving social interactions of ASD teenagers.
method Adapted robot-based imitation game with machine learning for pose detection.
result Preliminary results show game can elicit expected responses.
A conceptor-based approach helps robots recognize human internal states.
problem Recognizing human internal states for diagnostic purposes in autism therapy.
method A conceptor-based classifier to classify internal states.
result Initial results show potential for detailed diagnostic information.
Approximate 3D elastic curves with exact constraints
problem Designing and approximating 3D elastic curves
method Numerically stable method for recovering 11 parameters
result Fast and stable approximation of arbitrary curves
Autonomous learning has been a promising direction in control and robotics for more than a decade since data-driven learning allows to reduce the amount of engineering knowledge, which is otherwise required. However, autonomous reinforcement learning (RL) approaches typically require many interactions with the system t…
Paper proposes a method to control robots of different shapes efficiently.
problem Learning optimal control policies for robots of various shapes is challenging.
method Hierarchical architecture with hypernetworks and fixed attention mechanism.
result Method improves learning performance and generalizes to unseen morphologies.
A new framework for robot block-stacking tasks using causal probabilistic models.
problem Robots fail outside controlled environments due to uncertainty and lack of explicit design for all scenarios.
method Causal probabilistic framework combining causal models and probabilistic representations of noise.
result Robots can perceive, reason about, and explain their environment for block-stacking tasks.
Mathematical framework for cooperative communication explains belief transmission.
problem Lack of understanding why cooperation enables effective belief transmission.
method Connection to optimal transport theory, deriving prior models, statistical interpretations, proofs of robustness and instability.
result Cooperative communication provably enables effective, robust belief transmission.
We consider model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) in 2-agent, high-fidelity continuous control problems -- an important domain for robots interacting with other agents in the same workspace. For non-trivial dynamical systems, MBRL typically suffers from accumulating errors. Several recent studies have addressed thi…
Autonomous robots need to interact with unknown, unstructured and changing environments, constantly facing novel challenges. Therefore, continuous online adaptation for lifelong-learning and the need of sample-efficient mechanisms to adapt to changes in the environment, the constraints, the tasks, or the robot itself a…
This work evaluates task-agnostic exploration methods for fixed-batch learning.
problem Expensive real-world experience for robotics tasks.
method Fixed datasets for arbitrary task learning.
result Improved offline learning for robotics tasks.
Paper tackles policy selection with logged data and limited online interactions.
problem Safe evaluation and deployment of offline reinforcement learning policies.
method Active offline policy selection combining logged data with online interaction.
result Improves upon state-of-the-art OPE estimates and pure online policy evaluation.
A novel multi-modal active learning approach using RL for engagement estimation.
problem Challenges in labeling multi-modal human data for accurate user state estimation.
method Deep reinforcement learning for optimal data selection and multi-modal data fusion.
result The proposed approach outperforms existing methods in engagement estimation.
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.
Learning preferences implicit in the choices humans make is a well studied problem in both economics and computer science. However, most work makes the assumption that humans are acting (noisily) optimally with respect to their preferences. Such approaches can fail when people are themselves learning about what they wa…
Robot-assisted dressing offers an opportunity to benefit the lives of many people with disabilities, such as some older adults. However, robots currently lack common sense about the physical implications of their actions on people. The physical implications of dressing are complicated by non-rigid garments, which can r…
GPRIL learns efficient policies from few expert demonstrations.
problem Sample-efficient imitation learning for robots.
method Generative predecessor models to match expert demonstrations.
result GPRIL achieves higher sample efficiency on real robots.
Robust optimization and statistical robustness improve robot navigation policies.
problem Efficiently finding optimal robot navigation policies in uncertain environments.
method Combining robust optimization and statistical robustness with improved Bayesian optimization techniques.
result Safe and repeatable robot navigation policies are achieved with improved robust optimization methods.
One of the open challenges in designing robots that operate successfully in the unpredictable human environment is how to make them able to predict what actions they can perform on objects, and what their effects will be, i.e., the ability to perceive object affordances. Since modeling all the possible world interactio…
This work creates a system for understanding human movement in spaces.
problem Simplify communication and interaction between robots and humans in spatial tasks.
method Uses unsupervised learning with neural autoencoding to learn continuous representations of spatio-temporal trajectory data.
result Proposes a method to form prototypical representations of movement based on spatial context.
Robotic grasp stability improved with fingertip slippage detection.
problem Improving grasp stability in robotic manipulation.
method Task-relevant feature extraction and efficient classifier design for fingertip slippage detection.
result The proposed method effectively detects object slippage with fingertips in an online fashion.
Robotic learning without reward engineering from images.
problem Manual reward engineering for reinforcement learning in robotics.
method Learning from examples and active solicitation of labels.
result Efficient learning of robotic skills from images without manual rewards.
The most data-efficient algorithms for reinforcement learning in robotics are model-based policy search algorithms, which alternate between learning a dynamical model of the robot and optimizing a policy to maximize the expected return given the model and its uncertainties. Among the few proposed approaches, the recent…