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7 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2019

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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.

am

Support Video link (url) [BibTex]

2004

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Discovering optimal imitation strategies

Billard, A., Epars, Y., Calinon, S., Cheng, G., Schaal, S.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 47(2-3):68-77, 2004, clmc (article)

Abstract
This paper develops a general policy for learning relevant features of an imitation task. We restrict our study to imitation of manipulative tasks or of gestures. The imitation process is modeled as a hierarchical optimization system, which minimizes the discrepancy between two multi-dimensional datasets. To classify across manipulation strategies, we apply a probabilistic analysis to data in Cartesian and joint spaces. We determine a general metric that optimizes the policy of task reproduction, following strategy determination. The model successfully discovers strategies in six different imitative tasks and controls task reproduction by a full body humanoid robot.

am

[BibTex]

2004

am Billard, A., Epars, Y., Calinon, S., Cheng, G., Schaal, S. Discovering optimal imitation strategies Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 47(2-3):68-77, 2004, clmc (article)

[BibTex]

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Rhythmic movement is not discrete

Schaal, S., Sternad, D., Osu, R., Kawato, M.

Nature Neuroscience, 7(10):1137-1144, 2004, clmc (article)

Abstract
Rhythmic movements, like walking, chewing, or scratching, are phylogenetically old mo-tor behaviors found in many organisms, ranging from insects to primates. In contrast, discrete movements, like reaching, grasping, or kicking, are behaviors that have reached sophistication primarily in younger species, particularly in primates. Neurophysiological and computational research on arm motor control has focused almost exclusively on dis-crete movements, essentially assuming similar neural circuitry for rhythmic tasks. In con-trast, many behavioral studies focused on rhythmic models, subsuming discrete move-ment as a special case. Here, using a human functional neuroimaging experiment, we show that in addition to areas activated in rhythmic movement, discrete movement in-volves several higher cortical planning areas, despite both movement conditions were confined to the same single wrist joint. These results provide the first neuroscientific evi-dence that rhythmic arm movement cannot be part of a more general discrete movement system, and may require separate neurophysiological and theoretical treatment.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Schaal, S., Sternad, D., Osu, R., Kawato, M. Rhythmic movement is not discrete Nature Neuroscience, 7(10):1137-1144, 2004, clmc (article)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Learning from demonstration and adaptation of biped locomotion

Nakanishi, J., Morimoto, J., Endo, G., Cheng, G., Schaal, S., Kawato, M.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 47(2-3):79-91, 2004, clmc (article)

Abstract
In this paper, we introduce a framework for learning biped locomotion using dynamical movement primitives based on non-linear oscillators. Our ultimate goal is to establish a design principle of a controller in order to achieve natural human-like locomotion. We suggest dynamical movement primitives as a central pattern generator (CPG) of a biped robot, an approach we have previously proposed for learning and encoding complex human movements. Demonstrated trajectories are learned through movement primitives by locally weighted regression, and the frequency of the learned trajectories is adjusted automatically by a novel frequency adaptation algorithmbased on phase resetting and entrainment of coupled oscillators. Numerical simulations and experimental implementation on a physical robot demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed locomotioncontroller.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Nakanishi, J., Morimoto, J., Endo, G., Cheng, G., Schaal, S., Kawato, M. Learning from demonstration and adaptation of biped locomotion Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 47(2-3):79-91, 2004, clmc (article)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Feedback error learning and nonlinear adaptive control

Nakanishi, J., Schaal, S.

Neural Networks, 17(10):1453-1465, 2004, clmc (article)

Abstract
In this paper, we present our theoretical investigations of the technique of feedback error learning (FEL) from the viewpoint of adaptive control. We first discuss the relationship between FEL and nonlinear adaptive control with adaptive feedback linearization, and show that FEL can be interpreted as a form of nonlinear adaptive control. Second, we present a Lyapunov analysis suggesting that the condition of strictly positive realness (SPR) associated with the tracking error dynamics is a sufficient condition for asymptotic stability of the closed-loop dynamics. Specifically, for a class of second order SISO systems, we show that this condition reduces to KD^2 > KP; where KP and KD are positive position and velocity feedback gains, respectively. Moreover, we provide a ÔpassivityÕ-based stability analysis which suggests that SPR of the tracking error dynamics is a necessary and sufficient condition for asymptotic hyperstability. Thus, the condition KD^2>KP mentioned above is not only a sufficient but also necessary condition to guarantee asymptotic hyperstability of FEL, i.e. the tracking error is bounded and asymptotically converges to zero. As a further point, we explore the adaptive control and FEL framework for feedforward control formulations, and derive an additional sufficient condition for asymptotic stability in the sense of Lyapunov. Finally, we present numerical simulations to illustrate the stability properties of FEL obtained from our mathematical analysis.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Nakanishi, J., Schaal, S. Feedback error learning and nonlinear adaptive control Neural Networks, 17(10):1453-1465, 2004, clmc (article)

link (url) [BibTex]

1997

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Locally weighted learning

Atkeson, C. G., Moore, A. W., Schaal, S.

Artificial Intelligence Review, 11(1-5):11-73, 1997, clmc (article)

Abstract
This paper surveys locally weighted learning, a form of lazy learning and memory-based learning, and focuses on locally weighted linear regression. The survey discusses distance functions, smoothing parameters, weighting functions, local model structures, regularization of the estimates and bias, assessing predictions, handling noisy data and outliers, improving the quality of predictions by tuning fit parameters, interference between old and new data, implementing locally weighted learning efficiently, and applications of locally weighted learning. A companion paper surveys how locally weighted learning can be used in robot learning and control. Keywords: locally weighted regression, LOESS, LWR, lazy learning, memory-based learning, least commitment learning, distance functions, smoothing parameters, weighting functions, global tuning, local tuning, interference.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

1997

am Atkeson, C. G., Moore, A. W., Schaal, S. Locally weighted learning Artificial Intelligence Review, 11(1-5):11-73, 1997, clmc (article)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Locally weighted learning for control

Atkeson, C. G., Moore, A. W., Schaal, S.

Artificial Intelligence Review, 11(1-5):75-113, 1997, clmc (article)

Abstract
Lazy learning methods provide useful representations and training algorithms for learning about complex phenomena during autonomous adaptive control of complex systems. This paper surveys ways in which locally weighted learning, a type of lazy learning, has been applied by us to control tasks. We explain various forms that control tasks can take, and how this affects the choice of learning paradigm. The discussion section explores the interesting impact that explicitly remembering all previous experiences has on the problem of learning to control. Keywords: locally weighted regression, LOESS, LWR, lazy learning, memory-based learning, least commitment learning, forward models, inverse models, linear quadratic regulation (LQR), shifting setpoint algorithm, dynamic programming.

am

link (url) [BibTex]

am Atkeson, C. G., Moore, A. W., Schaal, S. Locally weighted learning for control Artificial Intelligence Review, 11(1-5):75-113, 1997, clmc (article)

link (url) [BibTex]