Publications | Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

939 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2020

Chained Representation Cycling: Learning to Estimate 3D Human Pose and Shape by Cycling Between Representations

Rueegg, N., Lassner, C., Black, M. J., Schindler, K.

In Thirty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-20), Febuary 2020 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The goal of many computer vision systems is to transform image pixels into 3D representations. Recent popular models use neural networks to regress directly from pixels to 3D object parameters. Such an approach works well when supervision is available, but in problems like human pose and shape estimation, it is difficult to obtain natural images with 3D ground truth. To go one step further, we propose a new architecture that facilitates unsupervised, or lightly supervised, learning. The idea is to break the problem into a series of transformations between increasingly abstract representations. Each step involves a cycle designed to be learnable without annotated training data, and the chain of cycles delivers the final solution. Specifically, we use 2D body part segments as an intermediate representation that contains enough information to be lifted to 3D, and at the same time is simple enough to be learned in an unsupervised way. We demonstrate the method by learning 3D human pose and shape from un-paired and un-annotated images. We also explore varying amounts of paired data and show that cycling greatly alleviates the need for paired data. While we present results for modeling humans, our formulation is general and can be applied to other vision problems.

pdf [BibTex]

2020

ps Rueegg, N., Lassner, C., Black, M. J., Schindler, K. Chained Representation Cycling: Learning to Estimate 3D Human Pose and Shape by Cycling Between Representations In Thirty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-20), Febuary 2020 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Hierarchical Event-triggered Learning for Cyclically Excited Systems with Application to Wireless Sensor Networks

Beuchert, J., Solowjow, F., Raisch, J., Trimpe, S., Seel, T.

IEEE Control Systems Letters, 4(1):103-108, January 2020 (article) To be published

ics

arXiv PDF DOI [BibTex]

ics Beuchert, J., Solowjow, F., Raisch, J., Trimpe, S., Seel, T. Hierarchical Event-triggered Learning for Cyclically Excited Systems with Application to Wireless Sensor Networks IEEE Control Systems Letters, 4(1):103-108, January 2020 (article) To be published

arXiv PDF DOI [BibTex]

Control-guided Communication: Efficient Resource Arbitration and Allocation in Multi-hop Wireless Control Systems

Baumann, D., Mager, F., Zimmerling, M., Trimpe, S.

IEEE Control Systems Letters, 4(1):127-132, January 2020 (article) To be published

ics

arXiv PDF DOI [BibTex]

ics Baumann, D., Mager, F., Zimmerling, M., Trimpe, S. Control-guided Communication: Efficient Resource Arbitration and Allocation in Multi-hop Wireless Control Systems IEEE Control Systems Letters, 4(1):127-132, January 2020 (article) To be published

arXiv PDF DOI [BibTex]

Fabrication and temperature-dependent magnetic properties of large-area L10-FePt/Co exchange-spring magnet nanopatterns

Son, K., Schütz, G.

{Physica E: Low-Dimensional Systems And Nanostructures}, 115, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 2020 (article)

mms

DOI [BibTex]

mms Son, K., Schütz, G. Fabrication and temperature-dependent magnetic properties of large-area L10-FePt/Co exchange-spring magnet nanopatterns {Physica E: Low-Dimensional Systems And Nanostructures}, 115, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 2020 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

2013

Learning People Detectors for Tracking in Crowded Scenes

Tang, S., Andriluka, M., Milan, A., Schindler, K., Roth, S., Schiele, B.

In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 1049-1056, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

2013

ps Tang, S., Andriluka, M., Milan, A., Schindler, K., Roth, S., Schiele, B. Learning People Detectors for Tracking in Crowded Scenes In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 1049-1056, IEEE, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Branch&Rank for Efficient Object Detection

Lehmann, A., Gehler, P., VanGool, L.

International Journal of Computer Vision, Springer, December 2013 (article)

Abstract

Ranking hypothesis sets is a powerful concept for efficient object detection. In this work, we propose a branch&rank scheme that detects objects with often less than 100 ranking operations. This efficiency enables the use of strong and also costly classifiers like non-linear SVMs with RBF-TeX kernels. We thereby relieve an inherent limitation of branch&bound methods as bounds are often not tight enough to be effective in practice. Our approach features three key components: a ranking function that operates on sets of hypotheses and a grouping of these into different tasks. Detection efficiency results from adaptively sub-dividing the object search space into decreasingly smaller sets. This is inherited from branch&bound, while the ranking function supersedes a tight bound which is often unavailable (except for rather limited function classes). The grouping makes the system effective: it separates image classification from object recognition, yet combines them in a single formulation, phrased as a structured SVM problem. A novel aspect of branch&rank is that a better ranking function is expected to decrease the number of classifier calls during detection. We use the VOC’07 dataset to demonstrate the algorithmic properties of branch&rank.

pdf link (url) [BibTex]

ps Lehmann, A., Gehler, P., VanGool, L. Branch&Rank for Efficient Object Detection International Journal of Computer Vision, Springer, December 2013 (article)

pdf link (url) [BibTex]

Strong Appearance and Expressive Spatial Models for Human Pose Estimation

Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3487 - 3494 , IEEE, Computer Vision (ICCV), IEEE International Conference on , December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Typical approaches to articulated pose estimation combine spatial modelling of the human body with appearance modelling of body parts. This paper aims to push the state-of-the-art in articulated pose estimation in two ways. First we explore various types of appearance representations aiming to substantially improve the body part hypotheses. And second, we draw on and combine several recently proposed powerful ideas such as more flexible spatial models as well as image-conditioned spatial models. In a series of experiments we draw several important conclusions: (1) we show that the proposed appearance representations are complementary; (2) we demonstrate that even a basic tree-structure spatial human body model achieves state-of-the-art performance when augmented with the proper appearance representation; and (3) we show that the combination of the best performing appearance model with a flexible image-conditioned spatial model achieves the best result, significantly improving over the state of the art, on the "Leeds Sports Poses'' and "Parse'' benchmarks.

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Strong Appearance and Expressive Spatial Models for Human Pose Estimation In International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3487 - 3494 , IEEE, Computer Vision (ICCV), IEEE International Conference on , December 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

A Practical System For Recording Instrument Interactions During Live Robotic Surgery

McMahan, W., Gomez, E. D., Chen, L., Bark, K., Nappo, J. C., Koch, E. I., Lee, D. I., Dumon, K., Williams, N., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

Journal of Robotic Surgery, 7(4):351-358, 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

hi McMahan, W., Gomez, E. D., Chen, L., Bark, K., Nappo, J. C., Koch, E. I., Lee, D. I., Dumon, K., Williams, N., Kuchenbecker, K. J. A Practical System For Recording Instrument Interactions During Live Robotic Surgery Journal of Robotic Surgery, 7(4):351-358, 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

Methods and Applications for Distance Based ANN Training

Lassner, C., Lienhart, R.

In IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Feature learning has the aim to take away the hassle of hand-designing features for machine learning tasks. Since the feature design process is tedious and requires a lot of experience, an automated solution is of great interest. However, an important problem in this field is that usually no objective values are available to fit a feature learning function to. Artificial Neural Networks are a sufficiently flexible tool for function approximation to be able to avoid this problem. We show how the error function of an ANN can be modified such that it works solely with objective distances instead of objective values. We derive the adjusted rules for backpropagation through networks with arbitrary depths and include practical considera- tions that must be taken into account to apply difference based learning successfully. On all three benchmark datasets we use, linear SVMs trained on automatically learned ANN features outperform RBF kernel SVMs trained on the raw data. This can be achieved in a feature space with up to only a tenth of dimensions of the number of original data dimensions. We conclude our work with two experiments on distance based ANN training in two further fields: data visualization and outlier detection.

pdf [BibTex]

ps Lassner, C., Lienhart, R. Methods and Applications for Distance Based ANN Training In IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), December 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Extracting Postural Synergies for Robotic Grasping

Romero, J., Feix, T., Ek, C., Kjellstrom, H., Kragic, D.

Robotics, IEEE Transactions on, 29(6):1342-1352, December 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

ps Romero, J., Feix, T., Ek, C., Kjellstrom, H., Kragic, D. Extracting Postural Synergies for Robotic Grasping Robotics, IEEE Transactions on, 29(6):1342-1352, December 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

Understanding High-Level Semantics by Modeling Traffic Patterns

Zhang, H., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R.

In International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 3056-3063, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper, we are interested in understanding the semantics of outdoor scenes in the context of autonomous driving. Towards this goal, we propose a generative model of 3D urban scenes which is able to reason not only about the geometry and objects present in the scene, but also about the high-level semantics in the form of traffic patterns. We found that a small number of patterns is sufficient to model the vast majority of traffic scenes and show how these patterns can be learned. As evidenced by our experiments, this high-level reasoning significantly improves the overall scene estimation as well as the vehicle-to-lane association when compared to state-of-the-art approaches. All data and code will be made available upon publication.

avg ps

pdf [BibTex]

avg ps Zhang, H., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R. Understanding High-Level Semantics by Modeling Traffic Patterns In International Conference on Computer Vision, pages: 3056-3063, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

A Non-parametric Bayesian Network Prior of Human Pose

Lehrmann, A. M., Gehler, P., Nowozin, S.

In Proceedings IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 1281-1288, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Having a sensible prior of human pose is a vital ingredient for many computer vision applications, including tracking and pose estimation. While the application of global non-parametric approaches and parametric models has led to some success, finding the right balance in terms of flexibility and tractability, as well as estimating model parameters from data has turned out to be challenging. In this work, we introduce a sparse Bayesian network model of human pose that is non-parametric with respect to the estimation of both its graph structure and its local distributions. We describe an efficient sampling scheme for our model and show its tractability for the computation of exact log-likelihoods. We empirically validate our approach on the Human 3.6M dataset and demonstrate superior performance to global models and parametric networks. We further illustrate our model's ability to represent and compose poses not present in the training set (compositionality) and describe a speed-accuracy trade-off that allows realtime scoring of poses.

Project page pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Lehrmann, A. M., Gehler, P., Nowozin, S. A Non-parametric Bayesian Network Prior of Human Pose In Proceedings IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 1281-1288, IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Project page pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Towards understanding action recognition

Jhuang, H., Gall, J., Zuffi, S., Schmid, C., Black, M. J.

In IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3192-3199, IEEE, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Although action recognition in videos is widely studied, current methods often fail on real-world datasets. Many recent approaches improve accuracy and robustness to cope with challenging video sequences, but it is often unclear what affects the results most. This paper attempts to provide insights based on a systematic performance evaluation using thoroughly-annotated data of human actions. We annotate human Joints for the HMDB dataset (J-HMDB). This annotation can be used to derive ground truth optical flow and segmentation. We evaluate current methods using this dataset and systematically replace the output of various algorithms with ground truth. This enables us to discover what is important – for example, should we work on improving flow algorithms, estimating human bounding boxes, or enabling pose estimation? In summary, we find that highlevel pose features greatly outperform low/mid level features; in particular, pose over time is critical, but current pose estimation algorithms are not yet reliable enough to provide this information. We also find that the accuracy of a top-performing action recognition framework can be greatly increased by refining the underlying low/mid level features; this suggests it is important to improve optical flow and human detection algorithms. Our analysis and JHMDB dataset should facilitate a deeper understanding of action recognition algorithms.

Website Errata Poster Paper Slides DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Jhuang, H., Gall, J., Zuffi, S., Schmid, C., Black, M. J. Towards understanding action recognition In IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), pages: 3192-3199, IEEE, Sydney, Australia, December 2013 (inproceedings)

Website Errata Poster Paper Slides DOI Project Page Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera

Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We address the problem of tracking the 6-DoF pose of an object while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot. We use a dynamic Bayesian network to perform inference and compute a posterior distribution over the current object pose. Depending on whether a robot or a human manipulates the object, we employ a process model with or without knowledge of control inputs. Observations are obtained from a range camera. As opposed to previous object tracking methods, we explicitly model self-occlusions and occlusions from the environment, e.g, the human or robotic hand. This leads to a strongly non-linear observation model and additional dependencies in the Bayesian network. We employ a Rao-Blackwellised particle filter to compute an estimate of the object pose at every time step. In a set of experiments, we demonstrate the ability of our method to accurately and robustly track the object pose in real-time while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot.

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

am Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S. Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Virtual Robotization of the Human Body via Data-Driven Vibrotactile Feedback

Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H.

In Proc. International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE), 8253, pages: 109-122, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Enschede, Netherlands, 2013, Oral presentation given by Kurihara. Best Paper Silver Award (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

hi Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H. Virtual Robotization of the Human Body via Data-Driven Vibrotactile Feedback In Proc. International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE), 8253, pages: 109-122, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Enschede, Netherlands, 2013, Oral presentation given by Kurihara. Best Paper Silver Award (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Mixing Decoded Cursor Velocity and Position from an Offline Kalman Filter Improves Cursor Control in People with Tetraplegia

Homer, M., Harrison, M., Black, M. J., Perge, J., Cash, S., Friehs, G., Hochberg, L.

In 6th International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 715-718, San Diego, November 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Kalman filtering is a common method to decode neural signals from the motor cortex. In clinical research investigating the use of intracortical brain computer interfaces (iBCIs), the technique enabled people with tetraplegia to control assistive devices such as a computer or robotic arm directly from their neural activity. For reaching movements, the Kalman filter typically estimates the instantaneous endpoint velocity of the control device. Here, we analyzed attempted arm/hand movements by people with tetraplegia to control a cursor on a computer screen to reach several circular targets. A standard velocity Kalman filter is enhanced to additionally decode for the cursor’s position. We then mix decoded velocity and position to generate cursor movement commands. We analyzed data, offline, from two participants across six sessions. Root mean squared error between the actual and estimated cursor trajectory improved by 12.2 ±10.5% (pairwise t-test, p<0.05) as compared to a standard velocity Kalman filter. The findings suggest that simultaneously decoding for intended velocity and position and using them both to generate movement commands can improve the performance of iBCIs.

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

ps Homer, M., Harrison, M., Black, M. J., Perge, J., Cash, S., Friehs, G., Hochberg, L. Mixing Decoded Cursor Velocity and Position from an Offline Kalman Filter Improves Cursor Control in People with Tetraplegia In 6th International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, pages: 715-718, San Diego, November 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

Jointonation: Robotization of the Human Body by Vibrotactile Feedback

Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H.

Emerging Technologies Demonstration with Talk at ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, Hong Kong, November 2013, Hands-on demonstration given by Kurihara, Takei, and Nakai. Best Demonstration Award as voted by the Program Committee (misc)

[BibTex]

hi Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H. Jointonation: Robotization of the Human Body by Vibrotactile Feedback Emerging Technologies Demonstration with Talk at ACM SIGGRAPH Asia, Hong Kong, November 2013, Hands-on demonstration given by Kurihara, Takei, and Nakai. Best Demonstration Award as voted by the Program Committee (misc)

[BibTex]

Markov Random Field Modeling, Inference & Learning in Computer Vision & Image Understanding: A Survey

Wang, C., Komodakis, N., Paragios, N.

Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 117(11):1610-1627, November 2013 (article)

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of Markov Random Fields (MRFs) in computer vision and image understanding, with respect to the modeling, the inference and the learning. While MRFs were introduced into the computer vision field about two decades ago, they started to become a ubiquitous tool for solving visual perception problems around the turn of the millennium following the emergence of efficient inference methods. During the past decade, a variety of MRF models as well as inference and learning methods have been developed for addressing numerous low, mid and high-level vision problems. While most of the literature concerns pairwise MRFs, in recent years we have also witnessed significant progress in higher-order MRFs, which substantially enhances the expressiveness of graph-based models and expands the domain of solvable problems. This survey provides a compact and informative summary of the major literature in this research topic.

Publishers site pdf [BibTex]

ps Wang, C., Komodakis, N., Paragios, N. Markov Random Field Modeling, Inference & Learning in Computer Vision & Image Understanding: A Survey Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 117(11):1610-1627, November 2013 (article)

Publishers site pdf [BibTex]

Camera-specific Image Denoising

Schober, M.

Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany, October 2013 (diplomathesis)

ei pn

PDF [BibTex]

ei pn Schober, M. Camera-specific Image Denoising Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany, October 2013 (diplomathesis)

PDF [BibTex]

3-D Object Reconstruction of Symmetric Objects by Fusing Visual and Tactile Sensing

Illonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V.

The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(2):321-341, Sage, October 2013 (article)

Abstract

In this work, we propose to reconstruct a complete 3-D model of an unknown object by fusion of visual and tactile information while the object is grasped. Assuming the object is symmetric, a first hypothesis of its complete 3-D shape is generated. A grasp is executed on the object with a robotic manipulator equipped with tactile sensors. Given the detected contacts between the fingers and the object, the initial full object model including the symmetry parameters can be refined. This refined model will then allow the planning of more complex manipulation tasks. The main contribution of this work is an optimal estimation approach for the fusion of visual and tactile data applying the constraint of object symmetry. The fusion is formulated as a state estimation problem and solved with an iterative extended Kalman filter. The approach is validated experimentally using both artificial and real data from two different robotic platforms.

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

am Illonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V. 3-D Object Reconstruction of Symmetric Objects by Fusing Visual and Tactile Sensing The International Journal of Robotics Research, 33(2):321-341, Sage, October 2013 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Multi-robot cooperative spherical-object tracking in 3D space based on particle filters

Ahmad, A., Lima, P.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61(10):1084-1093, October 2013 (article)

Abstract

This article presents a cooperative approach for tracking a moving spherical object in 3D space by a team of mobile robots equipped with sensors, in a highly dynamic environment. The tracker’s core is a particle filter, modified to handle, within a single unified framework, the problem of complete or partial occlusion for some of the involved mobile sensors, as well as inconsistent estimates in the global frame among sensors, due to observation errors and/or self-localization uncertainty. We present results supporting our approach by applying it to a team of real soccer robots tracking a soccer ball, including comparison with ground truth.

DOI [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Lima, P. Multi-robot cooperative spherical-object tracking in 3D space based on particle filters Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61(10):1084-1093, October 2013 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

Multi-Robot Cooperative Object Tracking Based on Particle Filters

Ahmad, A., Lima, P.

In 61(10):1084-1093, 5th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR), October 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

This article presents a cooperative approach for tracking a moving object by a team of mobile robots equipped with sensors, in a highly dynamic environment. The tracker’s core is a particle filter, modified to handle, within a single unified framework, the problem of complete or partial occlusion for some of the involved mobile sensors, as well as inconsistent estimates in the global frame among sensors, due to observation errors and/or self-localization uncertainty. We present results supporting our approach by applying it to a team of real soccer robots tracking a soccer ball.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Lima, P. Multi-Robot Cooperative Object Tracking Based on Particle Filters In 61(10):1084-1093, 5th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR), October 2013 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Puppet Flow

Zuffi, S., Black, M. J.

(7), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, October 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

We introduce Puppet Flow (PF), a layered model describing the optical flow of a person in a video sequence. We consider video frames composed by two layers: a foreground layer corresponding to a person, and background. We model the background as an affine flow field. The foreground layer, being a moving person, requires reasoning about the articulated nature of the human body. We thus represent the foreground layer with the Deformable Structures model (DS), a parametrized 2D part-based human body representation. We call the motion field defined through articulated motion and deformation of the DS model, a Puppet Flow. By exploiting the DS representation, Puppet Flow is a parametrized optical flow field, where parameters are the person's pose, gender and body shape.

pdf Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Zuffi, S., Black, M. J. Puppet Flow (7), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, October 2013 (techreport)

pdf Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

D2.1.4 RoCKIn@Work - Innovation in Mobile Industrial Manipulation Competition Design, Rule Book, and Scenario Construction

Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schneider, S.

(FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.7), RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics, sep 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

RoCKIn is a EU-funded project aiming to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics through the design and implementation of competitions. An additional objective of RoCKIn is to increase public awareness of the current state-of-the-art in robotics in Europe and to demonstrate the innovation potential of robotics applications for solving societal challenges and improving the competitiveness of Europe in the global markets. In order to achieve these objectives, RoCKIn develops two competitions, one for domestic service robots (RoCKIn@Home) and one for industrial robots in factories (RoCKIn-@Work). These competitions are designed around challenges that are based on easy-to-communicate and convincing user stories, which catch the interest of both the general public and the scientifc community. The latter is in particular interested in solving open scientific challenges and to thoroughly assess, compare, and evaluate the developed approaches with competing ones. To allow this to happen, the competitions are designed to meet the requirements of benchmarking procedures and good experimental methods. The integration of benchmarking technology with the competition concept is one of the main objectives of RoCKIn. This document describes the first version of the RoCKIn@Work competition, which will be held for the first time in 2014. The first chapter of the document gives a brief overview, outlining the purpose and objective of the competition, the methodological approach taken by the RoCKIn project, the user story upon which the competition is based, the structure and organization of the competition, and the commonalities and differences with the RoboCup@Work competition, which served as inspiration for RoCKIn@Work. The second chapter provides details on the user story and analyzes the scientific and technical challenges it poses. Consecutive chapters detail the competition scenario, the competition design, and the organization of the competition. The appendices contain information on a library of functionalities, which we believe are needed, or at least useful, for building competition entries, details on the scenario construction, and a detailed account of the benchmarking infrastructure needed — and provided by RoCKIn.

[BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schneider, S. D2.1.4 RoCKIn@Work - Innovation in Mobile Industrial Manipulation Competition Design, Rule Book, and Scenario Construction (FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.7), RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics, sep 2013 (techreport)

[BibTex]

D2.1.1 RoCKIn@Home - A Competition for Domestic Service Robots Competition Design, Rule Book, and Scenario Construction

(FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.7), RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics, sep 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

RoCKIn is a EU-funded project aiming to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics through the design and implementation of competitions. An additional objective of RoCKIn is to increase public awareness of the current state-of-the-art in robotics in Europe and to demonstrate the innovation potential of robotics applications for solving societal challenges and improving the competitiveness of Europe in the global markets. In order to achieve these objectives, RoCKIn develops two competitions, one for domestic service robots (RoCKIn@Home) and one for industrial robots in factories (RoCKIn-@Work). These competitions are designed around challenges that are based on easy-to-communicate and convincing user stories, which catch the interest of both the general public and the scientifc community. The latter is in particular interested in solving open scientific challenges and to thoroughly assess, compare, and evaluate the developed approaches with competing ones. To allow this to happen, the competitions are designed to meet the requirements of benchmarking procedures and good experimental methods. The integration of benchmarking technology with the competition concept is one of the main objectives of RoCKIn. This document describes the first version of the RoCKIn@Home competition, which will be held for the first time in 2014. The first chapter of the document gives a brief overview, outlining the purpose and objective of the competition, the methodological approach taken by the RoCKIn project, the user story upon which the competition is based, the structure and organization of the competition, and the commonalities and differences with the RoboCup@Home competition, which served as inspiration for RoCKIn@Home. The second chapter provides details on the user story and analyzes the scientific and technical challenges it poses. Consecutive chapters detail the competition scenario, the competition design, and the organization of the competition. The appendices contain information on a library of functionalities, which we believe are needed, or at least useful, for building competition entries, details on the scenario construction, and a detailed account of the benchmarking infrastructure needed — and provided by RoCKIn.

[BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schneider, S. D2.1.1 RoCKIn@Home - A Competition for Domestic Service Robots Competition Design, Rule Book, and Scenario Construction (FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.7), RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics, sep 2013 (techreport)

[BibTex]

Sisyphus cooling in a continuously loaded trap

Volchkov, V., Rührig, J., Pfau, T., Griesmaier, A.

New Journal of Physics, 15, pages: 093012, IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, September 2013 (article)

Abstract

We demonstrate continuous Sisyphus cooling combined with a continuous loading mechanism used to efficiently slow down and accumulate chromium atoms from a guided beam. While the loading itself is based on a single slowing step, applying a radio frequency field forces the atoms to repeat this step many times resulting in a so-called Sisyphus cooling. This extension allows efficient loading and cooling of atoms from a wide range of initial beam conditions. We study the interplay of the continuous loading and simultaneous Sisyphus cooling in different density regimes. In the case of a low density flux we observe a differential gain in phase-space density of nine orders of magnitude. This makes the presented scheme an ideal tool for reaching collisional densities enabling evaporative cooling—in spite of unfavourable initial conditions.

DOI [BibTex]

sf Volchkov, V., Rührig, J., Pfau, T., Griesmaier, A. Sisyphus cooling in a continuously loaded trap New Journal of Physics, 15, pages: 093012, IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, September 2013 (article)

DOI [BibTex]

Distribution Fields with Adaptive Kernels for Large Displacement Image Alignment

Mears, B., Sevilla-Lara, L., Learned-Miller, E.

In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

While region-based image alignment algorithms that use gradient descent can achieve sub-pixel accuracy when they converge, their convergence depends on the smoothness of the image intensity values. Image smoothness is often enforced through the use of multiscale approaches in which images are smoothed and downsampled. Yet, these approaches typically use fixed smoothing parameters which may be appropriate for some images but not for others. Even for a particular image, the optimal smoothing parameters may depend on the magnitude of the transformation. When the transformation is large, the image should be smoothed more than when the transformation is small. Further, with gradient-based approaches, the optimal smoothing parameters may change with each iteration as the algorithm proceeds towards convergence. We address convergence issues related to the choice of smoothing parameters by deriving a Gauss-Newton gradient descent algorithm based on distribution fields (DFs) and proposing a method to dynamically select smoothing parameters at each iteration. DF and DF-like representations have previously been used in the context of tracking. In this work we incorporate DFs into a full affine model for region-based alignment and simultaneously search over parameterized sets of geometric and photometric transforms. We use a probabilistic interpretation of DFs to select smoothing parameters at each step in the optimization and show that this results in improved convergence rates.

pdf code [BibTex]

ps Mears, B., Sevilla-Lara, L., Learned-Miller, E. Distribution Fields with Adaptive Kernels for Large Displacement Image Alignment In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf code [BibTex]

Metric Regression Forests for Human Pose Estimation

(Best Science Paper Award)

Pons-Moll, G., Taylor, J., Shotton, J., Hertzmann, A., Fitzgibbon, A.

In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

ps Pons-Moll, G., Taylor, J., Shotton, J., Hertzmann, A., Fitzgibbon, A. Metric Regression Forests for Human Pose Estimation In British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC) , BMVA Press, September 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives

Sitti, M., Kim, S.

sep 2013, US Patent App. 14/016,651 (misc)

[BibTex]

pi Sitti, M., Kim, S. Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives sep 2013, US Patent App. 14/016,651 (misc)

[BibTex]

Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives

Sitti, M., Kim, S.

sep 2013, US Patent App. 14/016,683 (misc)

[BibTex]

pi Sitti, M., Kim, S. Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives sep 2013, US Patent App. 14/016,683 (misc)

[BibTex]

Vision meets Robotics: The KITTI Dataset

Geiger, A., Lenz, P., Stiller, C., Urtasun, R.

International Journal of Robotics Research, 32(11):1231 - 1237 , Sage Publishing, September 2013 (article)

Abstract

We present a novel dataset captured from a VW station wagon for use in mobile robotics and autonomous driving research. In total, we recorded 6 hours of traffic scenarios at 10-100 Hz using a variety of sensor modalities such as high-resolution color and grayscale stereo cameras, a Velodyne 3D laser scanner and a high-precision GPS/IMU inertial navigation system. The scenarios are diverse, capturing real-world traffic situations and range from freeways over rural areas to inner-city scenes with many static and dynamic objects. Our data is calibrated, synchronized and timestamped, and we provide the rectified and raw image sequences. Our dataset also contains object labels in the form of 3D tracklets and we provide online benchmarks for stereo, optical flow, object detection and other tasks. This paper describes our recording platform, the data format and the utilities that we provide.

avg ps

pdf DOI [BibTex]

avg ps Geiger, A., Lenz, P., Stiller, C., Urtasun, R. Vision meets Robotics: The KITTI Dataset International Journal of Robotics Research, 32(11):1231 - 1237 , Sage Publishing, September 2013 (article)

pdf DOI [BibTex]

Vibrotactile Display: Perception, Technology, and Applications

Choi, S., Kuchenbecker, K. J.

Proceedings of the IEEE, 101(9):2093-2104, sep 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

hi Choi, S., Kuchenbecker, K. J. Vibrotactile Display: Perception, Technology, and Applications Proceedings of the IEEE, 101(9):2093-2104, sep 2013 (article)

[BibTex]

Virtual Robotization of the Human Body Using Vibration Recording, Modeling and Rendering

Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H.

In Proc. Virtual Reality Society of Japan Annual Conference, Osaka, Japan, sep 2013, Paper written in Japanese. Presentation given by Kurihara (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

hi Kurihara, Y., Hachisu, T., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Kajimoto, H. Virtual Robotization of the Human Body Using Vibration Recording, Modeling and Rendering In Proc. Virtual Reality Society of Japan Annual Conference, Osaka, Japan, sep 2013, Paper written in Japanese. Presentation given by Kurihara (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives

Sitti, M., Kim, S.

sep 2013, US Patent 8,524,092 (misc)

[BibTex]

pi Sitti, M., Kim, S. Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives sep 2013, US Patent 8,524,092 (misc)

[BibTex]

Human Pose Calculation from Optical Flow Data

Black, M., Loper, M., Romero, J., Zuffi, S.

European Patent Application EP 2843621 , August 2013 (patent)

Google Patents [BibTex]

ps Black, M., Loper, M., Romero, J., Zuffi, S. Human Pose Calculation from Optical Flow Data European Patent Application EP 2843621 , August 2013 (patent)

Google Patents [BibTex]

Statistics on Manifolds with Applications to Modeling Shape Deformations

Freifeld, O.

Brown University, August 2013 (phdthesis)

Abstract

Statistical models of non-rigid deformable shape have wide application in many fields, including computer vision, computer graphics, and biometry. We show that shape deformations are well represented through nonlinear manifolds that are also matrix Lie groups. These pattern-theoretic representations lead to several advantages over other alternatives, including a principled measure of shape dissimilarity and a natural way to compose deformations. Moreover, they enable building models using statistics on manifolds. Consequently, such models are superior to those based on Euclidean representations. We demonstrate this by modeling 2D and 3D human body shape. Shape deformations are only one example of manifold-valued data. More generally, in many computer-vision and machine-learning problems, nonlinear manifold representations arise naturally and provide a powerful alternative to Euclidean representations. Statistics is traditionally concerned with data in a Euclidean space, relying on the linear structure and the distances associated with such a space; this renders it inappropriate for nonlinear spaces. Statistics can, however, be generalized to nonlinear manifolds. Moreover, by respecting the underlying geometry, the statistical models result in not only more effective analysis but also consistent synthesis. We go beyond previous work on statistics on manifolds by showing how, even on these curved spaces, problems related to modeling a class from scarce data can be dealt with by leveraging information from related classes residing in different regions of the space. We show the usefulness of our approach with 3D shape deformations. To summarize our main contributions: 1) We define a new 2D articulated model -- more expressive than traditional ones -- of deformable human shape that factors body-shape, pose, and camera variations. Its high realism is obtained from training data generated from a detailed 3D model. 2) We define a new manifold-based representation of 3D shape deformations that yields statistical deformable-template models that are better than the current state-of-the- art. 3) We generalize a transfer learning idea from Euclidean spaces to Riemannian manifolds. This work demonstrates the value of modeling manifold-valued data and their statistics explicitly on the manifold. Specifically, the methods here provide new tools for shape analysis.

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

ps Freifeld, O. Statistics on Manifolds with Applications to Modeling Shape Deformations Brown University, August 2013 (phdthesis)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

D1.1 Specification of General Features of Scenarios and Robots for Benchmarking Through Competitions

Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Fontana, G., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schiaffonati, V., Schneider, S.

(FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 1.0), RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics, July 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

RoCKIn is a EU-funded project aiming to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics through the design and implementation of competitions. An additional objective of RoCKIn is to increase public awareness of the current state-of-the-art in robotics and the innovation potential of robotics applications. From these objectives several requirements for the work performed in RoCKIn can be derived: The RoCKIn competitions must start from convincing, easy-to-communicate user stories, that catch the attention of relevant stakeholders, the media, and the crowd. The user stories play the role of a mid- to long-term vision for a competition. Preferably, the user stories address economic, societal, or environmental problems. The RoCKIn competitions must pose open scientific challenges of interest to sufficiently many researchers to attract existing and new teams of robotics researchers for participation in the competition. The competitions need to promise some suitable reward, such as recognition in the scientific community, publicity for a team’s work, awards, or prize money, to justify the effort a team puts into the development of a competition entry. The competitions should be designed in such a way that they reward general, scientifically sound solutions to the challenge problems; such general solutions should score better than approaches that work only in narrowly defined contexts and are considred over-engineered. The challenges motivating the RoCKIn competitions must be broken down into suitable intermediate goals that can be reached with a limited team effort until the next competition and the project duration. The RoCKIn competitions must be well-defined and well-designed, with comprehensive rule books and instructions for the participants in order to guarantee a fair competition. The RoCKIn competitions must integrate competitions with benchmarking in order to provide comprehensive feedback for the teams about the suitability of particular functional modules, their overall architecture, and system integration. This document takes the first steps towards the RoCKIn goals. After outlining our approach, we present several user stories for further discussion within the community. The main objectives of this document are to identify and document relevant scenario features and the tasks and functionalities subject for benchmarking in the competitions.

[BibTex]

ps Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Fontana, G., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schiaffonati, V., Schneider, S. D1.1 Specification of General Features of Scenarios and Robots for Benchmarking Through Competitions (FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 1.0), RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics, July 2013 (techreport)

[BibTex]

Studying large-scale brain networks: electrical stimulation and neural-event-triggered fMRI

Logothetis, N., Eschenko, O., Murayama, Y., Augath, M., Steudel, T., Evrard, H., Besserve, M., Oeltermann, A.

Twenty-Second Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2013), July 2013, journal = {BMC Neuroscience}, year = {2013}, month = {7}, volume = {14}, number = {Supplement 1}, pages = {A1}, (talk)

Web [BibTex]

ei Logothetis, N., Eschenko, O., Murayama, Y., Augath, M., Steudel, T., Evrard, H., Besserve, M., Oeltermann, A. Studying large-scale brain networks: electrical stimulation and neural-event-triggered fMRI Twenty-Second Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2013), July 2013, journal = {BMC Neuroscience}, year = {2013}, month = {7}, volume = {14}, number = {Supplement 1}, pages = {A1}, (talk)

Web [BibTex]

SocRob-MSL 2013 Team Description Paper for Middle Sized League

Messias, J., Ahmad, A., Reis, J., Serafim, M., Lima, P.

17th Annual RoboCup International Symposium 2013, July 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

This paper describes the status of the SocRob MSL robotic soccer team as required by the RoboCup 2013 qualification procedures. The team’s latest scientific and technical developments, since its last participation in RoboCup MSL, include further advances in cooperative perception; novel communication methods for distributed robotics; progressive deployment of the ROS middleware; improved localization through feature tracking and Mixture MCL; novel planning methods based on Petri nets and decision-theoretic frameworks; and hardware developments in ball-handling/kicking devices.

link (url) [BibTex]

ps Messias, J., Ahmad, A., Reis, J., Serafim, M., Lima, P. SocRob-MSL 2013 Team Description Paper for Middle Sized League 17th Annual RoboCup International Symposium 2013, July 2013 (techreport)

link (url) [BibTex]

Visualizing dimensionality reduction of systems biology data

Lehrmann, A. M., Huber, M., Polatkan, A. C., Pritzkau, A., Nieselt, K.

Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 1(27):146-165, Springer, July 2013 (article)

pdf SpRay [BibTex]

ps Lehrmann, A. M., Huber, M., Polatkan, A. C., Pritzkau, A., Nieselt, K. Visualizing dimensionality reduction of systems biology data Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 1(27):146-165, Springer, July 2013 (article)

pdf SpRay [BibTex]

Poselet conditioned pictorial structures

Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pages: 588 - 595, IEEE, Portland, OR, Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVRP), June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pishchulin, L., Andriluka, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Poselet conditioned pictorial structures In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pages: 588 - 595, IEEE, Portland, OR, Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVRP), June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Occlusion Patterns for Object Class Detection

Pepik, B., Stark, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B.

In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Despite the success of recent object class recognition systems, the long-standing problem of partial occlusion re- mains a major challenge, and a principled solution is yet to be found. In this paper we leave the beaten path of meth- ods that treat occlusion as just another source of noise – instead, we include the occluder itself into the modelling, by mining distinctive, reoccurring occlusion patterns from annotated training data. These patterns are then used as training data for dedicated detectors of varying sophistica- tion. In particular, we evaluate and compare models that range from standard object class detectors to hierarchical, part-based representations of occluder/occludee pairs. In an extensive evaluation we derive insights that can aid fur- ther developments in tackling the occlusion challenge.

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

ps Pepik, B., Stark, M., Gehler, P., Schiele, B. Occlusion Patterns for Object Class Detection In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf Project Page [BibTex]

Lost! Leveraging the Crowd for Probabilistic Visual Self-Localization

(CVPR13 Best Paper Runner-Up)

Brubaker, M. A., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2013), pages: 3057-3064, IEEE, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this paper we propose an affordable solution to self- localization, which utilizes visual odometry and road maps as the only inputs. To this end, we present a probabilis- tic model as well as an efficient approximate inference al- gorithm, which is able to utilize distributed computation to meet the real-time requirements of autonomous systems. Because of the probabilistic nature of the model we are able to cope with uncertainty due to noisy visual odometry and inherent ambiguities in the map ( e.g ., in a Manhattan world). By exploiting freely available, community devel- oped maps and visual odometry measurements, we are able to localize a vehicle up to 3m after only a few seconds of driving on maps which contain more than 2,150km of driv- able roads.

avg ps

pdf supplementary project page [BibTex]

avg ps Brubaker, M. A., Geiger, A., Urtasun, R. Lost! Leveraging the Crowd for Probabilistic Visual Self-Localization In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2013), pages: 3057-3064, IEEE, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf supplementary project page [BibTex]

Human Pose Estimation using Body Parts Dependent Joint Regressors

Dantone, M., Gall, J., Leistner, C., van Gool, L.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3041-3048, IEEE, Portland, OR, USA, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this work, we address the problem of estimating 2d human pose from still images. Recent methods that rely on discriminatively trained deformable parts organized in a tree model have shown to be very successful in solving this task. Within such a pictorial structure framework, we address the problem of obtaining good part templates by proposing novel, non-linear joint regressors. In particular, we employ two-layered random forests as joint regressors. The first layer acts as a discriminative, independent body part classifier. The second layer takes the estimated class distributions of the first one into account and is thereby able to predict joint locations by modeling the interdependence and co-occurrence of the parts. This results in a pose estimation framework that takes dependencies between body parts already for joint localization into account and is thus able to circumvent typical ambiguities of tree structures, such as for legs and arms. In the experiments, we demonstrate that our body parts dependent joint regressors achieve a higher joint localization accuracy than tree-based state-of-the-art methods.

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

ps Dantone, M., Gall, J., Leistner, C., van Gool, L. Human Pose Estimation using Body Parts Dependent Joint Regressors In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pages: 3041-3048, IEEE, Portland, OR, USA, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

A fully-connected layered model of foreground and background flow

Sun, D., Wulff, J., Sudderth, E., Pfister, H., Black, M.

In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, (CVPR 2013), pages: 2451-2458, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Layered models allow scene segmentation and motion estimation to be formulated together and to inform one another. Traditional layered motion methods, however, employ fairly weak models of scene structure, relying on locally connected Ising/Potts models which have limited ability to capture long-range correlations in natural scenes. To address this, we formulate a fully-connected layered model that enables global reasoning about the complicated segmentations of real objects. Optimization with fully-connected graphical models is challenging, and our inference algorithm leverages recent work on efficient mean field updates for fully-connected conditional random fields. These methods can be implemented efficiently using high-dimensional Gaussian filtering. We combine these ideas with a layered flow model, and find that the long-range connections greatly improve segmentation into figure-ground layers when compared with locally connected MRF models. Experiments on several benchmark datasets show that the method can recover fine structures and large occlusion regions, with good flow accuracy and much lower computational cost than previous locally-connected layered models.

pdf Supplemental Material Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

ps Sun, D., Wulff, J., Sudderth, E., Pfister, H., Black, M. A fully-connected layered model of foreground and background flow In IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, (CVPR 2013), pages: 2451-2458, Portland, OR, June 2013 (inproceedings)

pdf Supplemental Material Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Correlation of Simultaneously Acquired Diffusion-Weighted Imaging and 2-Deoxy-[18F] fluoro-2-D-glucose Positron Emission Tomography of Pulmonary Lesions in a Dedicated Whole-Body Magnetic Resonance/Positron Emission Tomography System

Schmidt, H., Brendle, C., Schraml, C., Martirosian, P., Bezrukov, I., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Sauter, A., Claussen, C., Pfannenberg, C., Schwenzer, N.

Investigative Radiology, 48(5):247-255, May 2013 (article)

Web [BibTex]

ei Schmidt, H., Brendle, C., Schraml, C., Martirosian, P., Bezrukov, I., Hetzel, J., Müller, M., Sauter, A., Claussen, C., Pfannenberg, C., Schwenzer, N. Correlation of Simultaneously Acquired Diffusion-Weighted Imaging and 2-Deoxy-[18F] fluoro-2-D-glucose Positron Emission Tomography of Pulmonary Lesions in a Dedicated Whole-Body Magnetic Resonance/Positron Emission Tomography System Investigative Radiology, 48(5):247-255, May 2013 (article)

Web [BibTex]

Learning and Optimization with Submodular Functions

Sankaran, B., Ghazvininejad, M., He, X., Kale, D., Cohen, L.

ArXiv, May 2013 (techreport)

Abstract

In many naturally occurring optimization problems one needs to ensure that the definition of the optimization problem lends itself to solutions that are tractable to compute. In cases where exact solutions cannot be computed tractably, it is beneficial to have strong guarantees on the tractable approximate solutions. In order operate under these criterion most optimization problems are cast under the umbrella of convexity or submodularity. In this report we will study design and optimization over a common class of functions called submodular functions. Set functions, and specifically submodular set functions, characterize a wide variety of naturally occurring optimization problems, and the property of submodularity of set functions has deep theoretical consequences with wide ranging applications. Informally, the property of submodularity of set functions concerns the intuitive principle of diminishing returns. This property states that adding an element to a smaller set has more value than adding it to a larger set. Common examples of submodular monotone functions are entropies, concave functions of cardinality, and matroid rank functions; non-monotone examples include graph cuts, network flows, and mutual information. In this paper we will review the formal definition of submodularity; the optimization of submodular functions, both maximization and minimization; and finally discuss some applications in relation to learning and reasoning using submodular functions.

arxiv link (url) [BibTex]

am Sankaran, B., Ghazvininejad, M., He, X., Kale, D., Cohen, L. Learning and Optimization with Submodular Functions ArXiv, May 2013 (techreport)

arxiv link (url) [BibTex]

Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection

Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

One of the central problems in computer vision is the detection of semantically important objects and the estimation of their pose. Most of the work in object detection has been based on single image processing and its performance is limited by occlusions and ambiguity in appearance and geometry. This paper proposes an active approach to object detection by controlling the point of view of a mobile depth camera. When an initial static detection phase identifies an object of interest, several hypotheses are made about its class and orientation. The sensor then plans a sequence of view-points, which balances the amount of energy used to move with the chance of identifying the correct hypothesis. We formulate an active M-ary hypothesis testing problem, which includes sensor mobility, and solve it using a point-based approximate POMDP algorithm. The validity of our approach is verified through simulation and experiments with real scenes captured by a kinect sensor. The results suggest a significant improvement over static object detection.

pdf [BibTex]

am Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K. Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Replacing Causal Faithfulness with Algorithmic Independence of Conditionals

Lemeire, J., Janzing, D.

Minds and Machines, 23(2):227-249, May 2013 (article)

Abstract

Independence of Conditionals (IC) has recently been proposed as a basic rule for causal structure learning. If a Bayesian network represents the causal structure, its Conditional Probability Distributions (CPDs) should be algorithmically independent. In this paper we compare IC with causal faithfulness (FF), stating that only those conditional independences that are implied by the causal Markov condition hold true. The latter is a basic postulate in common approaches to causal structure learning. The common spirit of FF and IC is to reject causal graphs for which the joint distribution looks ‘non-generic’. The difference lies in the notion of genericity: FF sometimes rejects models just because one of the CPDs is simple, for instance if the CPD describes a deterministic relation. IC does not behave in this undesirable way. It only rejects a model when there is a non-generic relation between different CPDs although each CPD looks generic when considered separately. Moreover, it detects relations between CPDs that cannot be captured by conditional independences. IC therefore helps in distinguishing causal graphs that induce the same conditional independences (i.e., they belong to the same Markov equivalence class). The usual justification for FF implicitly assumes a prior that is a probability density on the parameter space. IC can be justified by Solomonoff’s universal prior, assigning non-zero probability to those points in parameter space that have a finite description. In this way, it favours simple CPDs, and therefore respects Occam’s razor. Since Kolmogorov complexity is uncomputable, IC is not directly applicable in practice. We argue that it is nevertheless helpful, since it has already served as inspiration and justification for novel causal inference algorithms.

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

ei Lemeire, J., Janzing, D. Replacing Causal Faithfulness with Algorithmic Independence of Conditionals Minds and Machines, 23(2):227-249, May 2013 (article)

PDF Web DOI [BibTex]

Benefits of an active spine supported bounding locomotion with a small compliant quadruped robot

Khoramshahi, M., Spröwitz, A., Tuleu, A., Ahmadabadi, M. N., Ijspeert, A. J.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3329-3334, May 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

We studied the effect of the control of an active spine versus a fixed spine, on a quadruped robot running in bound gait. Active spine supported actuation led to faster locomotion, with less foot sliding on the ground, and a higher stability to go straight forward. However, we did no observe an improvement of cost of transport of the spine-actuated, faster robot system compared to the rigid spine.

dlg

Youtube DOI Project Page [BibTex]

dlg Khoramshahi, M., Spröwitz, A., Tuleu, A., Ahmadabadi, M. N., Ijspeert, A. J. Benefits of an active spine supported bounding locomotion with a small compliant quadruped robot In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3329-3334, May 2013 (inproceedings)

Youtube DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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