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Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 3

The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 2


第五式倒拽九牛尾

接上式,左手由上经左侧至左胯外侧,掌心向上,手指内屈,右手由背后伸至肩高时屈肘,变成虚握拳,上体与左腿成一条斜线,与地面约成45度。 右脚向右跨一步,同时向右转体90度成右弓步势,右膝关节弯曲,膝盖不超过脚尖,外形动作似用力拉车状。 呼吸自然,意念两手心。 然后身体左转,左脚向前上一步,左手伸向前,右手伸向后,动作相同,方向相反(右图)。

5th Stance: Pulling Nine Bulls by Their Tails

Continue from the last stance. Move left hand downward past the left side of your body until it reaches the outside of the left hip. Turn palm facing upward and bent the fingers inward slightly. Raise the right hand up from behind your back until the arm is at shoulder height, then bend the elbow and transform palm into a hallow fist. The upper body and the left leg should now be inclined to form a 45 degree angle with the ground. Move right foot one step to the right and at the same time turn your body right 90 degrees and from a front stance toward the right. Bend the right knee but the knee should not exceed the toes of the right foot. The posture resembles pulling hard on a wagon. Maintain natural breathing and focus your mind on the two palms. Then turn your body left and take a step forward with your left foot. Reach the left hand forward and extend the right hand back. The movements are the same just to the opposite direction (see right figure).
 

第六式出爪亮翅

接上式,右腿用力蹬地,向前上一步,落于左脚内侧,成立正姿势。 两臂均回收于腰间,拳心朝上。 然后两拳变掌,同时向前推掌,掌心向前,指尖与肩斋平。 向前推掌要重如推山。 推掌时意想推窗望月,返回时五指微张,慢慢收向两胁,意想海水返潮。 反覆七次。

6th Stance: White Crane Spreading Wings and Extending Claws

Continue from the last stance. Firmly push the ground with the right leg and then take a step forward so the right foot lands next to the inside of your left foot and you are standing straight (the Attention position in military drills). Retract both arms back next to your waist still holding fists with the palm side facing upward. Then open the fists and shift hands into the palm form. At the same time push your palms forward. The centers of your palms should be facing forward, and the finger tips should be at shoulder height. Push palms forward as though you were pushing a giant mountain. Imagine that you are pushing windows open so you can appreciate the beauty of the moon when pushing palms forward. When retracting the arms, slightly separate the fingers and slowly retract arms back to the sides of your waist. Imagine the tidal waves retracting to the ocean. Repeat seven times.
Now let's see how Mr. Bruce Wen does it and explains it. Remember, it might be slightly different from the version I translated.




The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 4


Video of the Day:

I also do this intense abs workout twice a day! It's a good one!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research (Part 6)

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research Part 5 

I have discussed several top conferences related to my research. Now moving on to top symposiums. These symposiums are like workshops where new ideas are presented and discussed to get a reality check from the fellow researchers and also to brainstorm. However, they normally last for several days and give the participants plenty of time to collaborate and discuss things.

Top Symposiums
==================================================================

RO-MAN -- IEEE International Symposium on Robots and Human Interactive Communications

RO-MAN workshop/symposium addresses fundamental issues of co-existence of human and intelligent machines such as robots and recent advancements of technological as well as psychological researches on every aspect of interactive communication and collaboration between robots and humans. Originally founded by several Japaneses researchers in 1992, the symposium has grown to attract much attention from researchers around the world. For example, the last RO-MAN included papers from 17 different countries. Solicited subjects cover a wide range including (but not limited to) ones such as socially interactive robots, entertainment robots, human assisting robots, human training robots, education robots, and robotic arts.

The RO-MAN symposium/workshop is a two-track event held annually, therefore, relatively small, holding about 70 to 280 participants. Papers accepted are mostly six pages long. I have never attended the RO-MAN symposium, and I couldn't find any information on the acceptance rate of the workshop. I would guess the acceptance rate is much lower compared to the top conferences I had blogged about before

Since the last RO-MAN symposium just happened last month, the location for the next RO-MAN symposium Ro-Man 2012 (the 21th) is still unknown at this point.
Conference Dates: July 31-August 3, 2012 (roughly)
Submission Deadline: March 1, 2012 (roughly)



AAAI Spring/Fall Symposium Series

The AAAI Spring/Fall Symposia are great places to meet peer researchers in a more intimate setting and a relaxed atmosphere to share ideas and learn from each other's artificial intelligence research. The topics might change each year depending on symposium proposals received. Multiple symposiums of various topics will be held simultaneously and participants are expected to attend a single symposium throughout the symposium series. Besides the selected participants by the program committee (authors of accepted papers), only a limited number of people are allowed to register in each symposium on a first-come, first served basis, due to limited seats (the Symposium series are actually quite popular).

The Fall Symposium series is usually held on the east coast at Arlington, Virginia during late October or early November.

Each symposium will have a distinct research interest. For example, the AAAI 2011 Fall Symposia have the following seven topics:
  •     Advances in Cognitive Systems
  •     Building Representations of Common Ground with Intelligent Agents
  •     Complex Adaptive Systems: Energy, Information and Intelligence
  •     Multiagent Coordination under Uncertainty
  •     Open Government Knowledge: AI Opportunities and Challenges
  •     Question Generation
  •     Robot-Human Teamwork in Dynamic Adverse Environment
The last one about Robot-Human Teamwork would be the one I am interested in. Sometimes you can find the papers accepted at the symposium-specific web sites. But they really want you to buy the technical report at $35.
 
The next AAAI Fall Symposia AAAI 2011 Fall Symposia will be held at Arlington, Virginia, USA.
Symposia Dates: November 4-6, 2011
Submission Deadline: May 20, 2011


The next AAAI Fall Symposia you can submit a paper to is AAAI 2012 Fall Symposia
Symposia Dates: November 4-6, 2012 (Roughly)
Submission Deadline: May 20, 2012 (Roughly)



The Spring Symposium series is typically held during spring break (generally in March) on the west coast at Stanford. This one is actually my preferred one because Stanford University is not that far away from Utah, and I also lived in the neighborhood for three months.

The next AAAI Spring Symposia include the following six topics:
  •     AI, The Fundamental Social Aggregation Challenge, and the Autonomy of Hybrid Agent Groups
  •     Designing Intelligent Robots: Reintegrating AI
  •     Game Theory for Security, Sustainability and Health
  •     Intelligent Web Services Meet Social Computing
  •     Self-Tracking and Collective Intelligence for Personal Wellness
  •     Wisdom of the Crowd
 I have never attended either the Spring or Fall Symposia, but I was the co-author of a paper that got accepted at the AAAI Spring Symposium 2009 under the topic Agents that Learn from Human Teachers. It would be great if I could publish here again in the near future. It's always fun to visit the Silicon Valley!

The next AAAI Spring Symposium AAAI 2012 Spring Symposia will be held at Stanford University, Palo Alto,California, USA.
Symposium Dates: March 26-28, 2012
Submission Deadline: October 7, 2011



A good friend of mine, Janet, passed away this morning because of Acute Leukemia. Wish her peace in heaven! Lessons learned: Complete all those projects you want to do before a doctor tells you that you only have 5 days to live. Let's see, I need to finish my PhD, finish translating SPW, finish building a robot, and make up all the blog posts. Man! I better get working!




Friday, April 17, 2009

Robot of the Day: Panasonic's Hair-Washing Robot

Washing your hair might not be a difficult or tedious task that needs to be automated, unless you are a disabled person, an elderly, or a nurse at a hospital who has to give many patients many hair washes everyday.

At the International H.C.R. Exhibition (International Home Care & Rehabilitation Exhibition) 2010 held at Tokyo last year, Panasonic demoed a prototype robot that's capable of washing a person's hair autonomously. That robot had 16 fingers. In the upcoming H.C.R. 2011. Exhibition that will be held next week at Tokyo, Japan, Panasonic will demon a newer version of the hair-washing robot, one with 24 fingers and supposedly capable of delivering a more comfortable wash.

The hair-washing robot, with the size of a washing machine, is fully automous and can perform all the tasks of your regular hairdresser from wetting to shampooing, rinsing, conditioning and drying. It can even give you a head message at the end of hair wash like how most hairdressers do it in China. The robot first scans the shape of the person's head and then uses two robotic arms to guide the 16 fingers to work on your head. Sensors built into these fingers also make sure they apply the right amount of pressure to your head so your head does not explode. The video below shows you how the robot works.


In the video the robot only worked on a dummy. I would have liked to see a real human getting served by the robot. I don't know if real human have been used to test the robot, but I am pretty sure this kind of experiments would never get approved by the IRB at the universities here in the US. (On a side note, all those military robots never seem to run into this IRB problem, somehow.)

It would be really fun to open a shop equipped with these robots. For now people would just walk in to get a hair wash and massage. In the future, customers might also get a haircut in these unmanned barber shops. That would my idea type of robots -- robots that work and make money for me, so I don't have to. LOL! Of course one challenge is to help people overcome their fear of the robot malfunctioning. In fact, the lack of regulations and rules regarding the liabilities and safety of such kind of robots (robots with close human-robot interactions) is the precise reason why Panasonic has not commercialized the robot. Rumor has it that the situation will change dramatically during the year of 2012.

To be honest, I don't mind having one of these at my house if I don't have to pay for it. I'll even wash my hair once a day! But what I really need is a robot that can wash my kids autonomously several times everyday. Somehow they are always dirty!





Now I know why some people don't hate mowing the lawn, because they either have a robot lawn mower or they have a self-propelled lawn mower (which counts as a half-robot). I got one of those self-propelled lawn mowers, and man, what a difference! Now mowing the lawn feels like walking the dog.







Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 2

The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 1


第三式掌托天门

接上式,身体不动,两臂由两侧同时缓缓上举,举至正上方时与肩同宽,此时屈肘翻掌,手心向上,掌指相对,双臂成U字形状,并尽力上托,同时尽力提踵,并咬牙叩齿,舌抵上颚,咽津液下送丹田。 接看两脚跟外开,两臂缓缓下落至侧平举。 下落时由小指到拇指依次弯曲握拳,两脚跟随之下落,手足还原。 两臂由平举向上举时吸气,至托掌时略闭气或自然呼吸。 定式后约静停半分钟。

3rd Stance: Palm Lifting the Heavenly Gate

Continue from the last stance.  While keeping the body static, slowly raise arms from the side until they are at shoulder width. Now bend the elbows and turn your palms so your palms are facing upward and the tips of your hands are pointing at each other. The two arms should be in a U-shape. Push hands upward with strength and at the same time raise your heels off the ground. Grit your teeth and push the palate with your tongue. Swallow saliva down to the Dan-Tian (lower abdomen) region. Then turn your heels outward and slowly lower your arms to the side until they form a straight line with your shoulders. While lowering the arms, bend your fingers inward in order, pinky first and thumb last, and lower your heels back to the ground. Inhale while changing your arm position from flat on your sides to a lifting position. Once reaching the lifting position hold your breath shortly or breathe naturally. After the stance is completed, hold the position for half a minute.

 
第四式摘星换斗

接上式,左臂由上经左下侧划弧,落于背后,手心向下,并尽力下按。 右掌心翻向内下,臂上举,掌心向下﹔同时脖子向右扭转90度,头上仰,目视右掌。 转颈时右脚跟提起内转与左脚成丁字步。 身体重心在左脚(左图)。 定式后静停约半分钟,仿三五次深呼吸。 然后右手下落,左手上举,向左做摘星换斗(右图)。

4th Stance: Picking Off Stars and Change the Big Dipper

Continue from the last stance. Move left arm downward in a circular motion until it is behind your back with palm facing down and push palm down with strength. Turn the right palm downward and raises the right arm with palm facing down; at the same time turn your head 90 degrees to the right. Lift your head slightly to stare at your right palm. While turning your head, lift the right heel and rotate it so it makes up a T-step with your left foot. Keep your body weight on the left foot (see left figure). Hold the position for about half a minute and take 3-5 deep breaths. Then lower your right hand and raise your left hand to perform the stance on the other side (see right figure).

Again, here's a video of Mr. Bruce Wen demonstrating the two above-translated moves with English explanations. Note it is slightly different. I'll show a few other videos that match the translation better at the end of the series, but those videos won't have English dubbing or subtitles.


Watch out for the remaining stances translated in my future blog posts.



The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 3

 

Video of the Day:

No, I don't do Tendon-Altering Sutra, although I am thinking about doing it. I do this intense chest workout twice a day instead.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research (Part 5)

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research Part 4

Top Conferences
==================================================================

BRiMS -- Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation

BRIMS is a conference for modeling and simulation research scientists, engineers, and technical communities across disciplines to meet, share ideas, identify capability gaps, discuss cutting-edge research directions, highlight promising technologies, and showcase the state-of-the-art in applications. It focuses on Human Behavior Representation (HBR)-based technologies and practices and bridge the gap across the disciplines of cognitive and computational modeling, sociocultural modeling, graphical and statistical modeling, network science, computer science, artificial intelligence, and engineering.

BRiMS is mainly funded by military research agencies such as Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and Office of Naval Research (ONR). Every year, there's always a heavy presence of researchers from these military research labs. Therefore, if you plan to work for a military research lab, this is a great venue to network and meet potential employers.

BRiMS is a single-track conference, hence, a relatively small conference. It does have workshops and tutorials the day before the conference. Interestingly, every other year, the conference is always held at Sundance, Utah, which is only 20 minutes from where I live (which saves my advisor a bunch of money such as the airfare and hotel). Then the other year a location in eastern US will be selected as the conference hosting venue. I have been fortunate to publish at this conference in the past.

The next BRiMS conference BRiMS 2012 (the 21th) will be held at Amelia Island Plantation, Amelia Island, Florida, USA.
Conference Dates: March 12-15, 2012
Submission Deadline: December 10, 2011 (roughly)



DIS -- The ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

DIS is a multi-track conference held biennially. It is the premier, international arena where designers, artists, psychologists, user experience researchers, systems engineers and many more come together to debate and shape the future of interactive systems design and practice. Particularly, it addresses design as an integrated activity spanning technical, social, cognitive, organisational, and cultural factors. As described by the Interaction-Design.org, "DIS conferences are usually attended by people like; user experience designers seeking to go beyond usability; interaction designers developing interactive objects and installations; usability people who want to improve experience for ‘users’; web designers who want to create better Web sites; information architects; user interface designers working across the board, including desktop systems, mobile devices, and interactive products; cognitive and social scientists; human factors folks; games designers involved with characters, narrative and game play; visual designers concerned with information design and the aesthetics of their systems; ethnographers and customer service and many more."

DIS is a prestigious conference which makes competition between submissions high. For example, the acceptance rate for DIS 2008 was 34%. Because interactive design can be used in many aspects, DIS is naturally an interdisciplinary conference, encompassing all issues related to the design and deployment of interactive systems.

The theme of the upcoming DIS 2012 focuses on what happens when interactive systems are used "in the wild". This seems to be a perfect fit for research topics such as using a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) in wilderness search and rescue.

The next DIS conference DIS 2012 will be held at Newcastle, UK.
Conference Dates: June 11-15, 2012
Submission Deadline: January 20, 2012


AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research Part 6





Why do I always forget to eat lunch? This is not the right way to lose weight!



Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 1

Yi-Jin-Jing (Tendon-Altering Sutra), or 易筋经 in Chinese, is a famous Kung Fu from the Shaolin Temple School of Martial Arts. It is probably one of the most famous ancient Kung Fu manuscripts thanks to Mr. Jin Yong (Louis Cha), who used the  Kung Fu manuscript in the story plots in two of his well-received Wuxia (Martial Heroes) novels: Smiling Proud Wanderer, and Demi-Gods and Semi Devils. It is considered one of the two top Kung Fu skills of Shaolin alongside the Xi-Sui-Jing (Marrow-Cleansing Sutra).

Both the Tendon-Altering Sutra and the Marrow-Cleansing Sutra were said to be granted to the Shaolin Temple by Bodhidharma (达摩), the monk from ancient India and the founder of the Zen school of Buddhism in China. The two manuscripts supposedly contained breathing and meditation techniques that can turn a normal person into a top-notch Grandmaster of martial arts.

Of course Mr. Jin Yong had greatly exaggerated the power of the Tendon-Altering Sutra in his storytelling, but the manuscript was not a mere fabrication of the author and really existed. You can actually download the manuscript from the Internet. Following the exercises described in the manuscript can certainly improve one's well-being. The only problem is that the manuscript is in Chinese. So a fan of my SPW translation asked me if I could translate the manuscript into English. I thought it would be fun for all my readers to get a real sense of what the Tendon-Altering Sutra is all about, so here you go!

Note that there are many different variations  of the Tendon-Altering Sutra, each slightly different from one another. I just picked one of them to translate, and the videos might show slightly different movements. I picked this set of video because the guy in the video actually explains everything in English. Besides, he is just a funny guy! Enjoy!

易筋经十二式
The Twelve-Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (aka Tendon-Altering Sutra)

预备式

预备式身体正直站立,脚尖外撇,两脚与肩同宽。 周身放松,澄心敛神。 两臂自然下垂,紧贴两大腿外侧,下颔微收,两眼半睁半闭。 做三次深呼吸。

Preparation Stance

Stand upright, slightly point toes outward, and keep feet shoulder width. Relax your entire body, clear your heart, and keep your mind focused. Let arms hang naturally and keep them close to the outside of your thighs. Tighten your chin slightly. Keep your eyes half closed half open. Take three deep breaths.
 
第一式韦驮献杵

身体正直,两脚跟靠拢,两脚尖外撇,成小八字形。 两臂向前缓缓举起,手心相对,与肩同宽。 举至肩平屈肘成90度角,立掌,同时吸气。 而后缓慢合掌于胸前,同时呼气臆想四肢之气调入胸中,定式后静停一分钟。

1st Stance: Skanda[1] Presenting the Vajra Pestle

Stand in an upright position, keep two heels close, and slightly point toes outward like the Chinese character eight. Keep arms shoulder width, slowly raise arms forward, palms facing each other. Raise arms until they are at shoulder height, fold forearms inward so each elbow is at a 90-degree angle. Bent palms backwards while breathing in. Then slowly put palms together in a prayer position in front of your chest. Breathe out at the same time and imagine that you are directing inner energy flows from your limbs into your chest. Hold the position for one minute.

第二式横担降魔杵

接上式,身体不动,两臂缓缓下落,并逐渐分手。 两手落到丹田时稍停片刻,再下落时分向两侧,经大腿外侧向上成俯掌侧平举,两脚跟提起。 手臂下落时要意沉丹田,平举时气随手行入掌心。 呼吸自然,心平气和。 定式后静停一分钟。

2nd Stance: Shoulders Carrying the Demon-Subduing Vajra Pestle
Continue from the last stance, slowly lower two arms without moving the body and gradually move arms outward. Stop briefly when your two hands reach the Dan-Tian (lower abdomen) region. Then lower your hands while moving them outward and let your hands move past the outer side of your thighs before bringing your arms upwards on the sides with palms facing down. Raise your arms until they are even with shoulder height. Raise your heels to stand on your toes. When lowering your arms, you must submerge you mind into the Dan-Tian region. When raising your arms on the side, direct the energy flow from each arm into the center of your palm. Breathe naturally and maintain a peaceful and calm mind. Hold the position for one minute.



[1] Skanda is a Bodhisattva in Buddhism scriptures.

The video below shows you how the above-translated stances are executed, demonstrated by Mr. Bruce Wen, a Shaolin monk (I couldn't verify that). It's one of the many videos on the Internet demonstrating the stances of the Tendon-Altering Sutra. It's actually slightly different from the version I translated, but this is the only one with detailed explanations in English.


Watch out for the remaining stances translated in my future blog posts.


The Twelve Stances of Yi-Jin-Jing (The Tendon-Altering Sutra) Part 2


Video of the Day:

I Googled Mr. Bruce Wen and found this very interesting video below, in which he demonstrated how to get rid of your useless yellow page phone book and spare metal bars. (Disclaim: Don't try this at home or anywhere else!) Enjoy!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Seven Weapons - Longevity Sword: Chapter 1 (4)

This one is a bit short. It's Gu Long's fault, not mine. :)

FOUR

The stone cell was ghastly and chilly, but Gongsun Jing started to sweat. Drops of soybean-sized cold sweats streamed down his pale face one after another.
Young Master Zhu looked at him, his gaze as tender as when he looked at his own hands.
“You must know it!” he said in a gentle voice.
“Know…know what?”
“Know who is thanking you.”
Clenching his fists, Gongsun Jing suddenly turned around and dashed out.
“Well, he really is a nice guy. What a pity that nice guys are always said to not live very long…,” Young Master Zhu murmured with another sigh.
“Suppose it is true that there are only seven people who are capable of getting through these thirteen traps. Who would they be?”
“One is for sure. No matter how you count them, he’d count as one of the seven.”
“Who is he then?”
“Bai Yujing[1]!”

[1] “Bai Yujing” means palace of white jade, the same words used in the first line of the poem at the beginning of the chapter.
Now support the translator Lanny by following my blog and leaving comments! :)


Video of the Day:

Disclaimer: I do not mean any disrespect to the Indian people. But this video is just hilarious!! So be aware, never get Buffalaxed!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The challenges of evaluating the search efficiency of a UAV's coverage path (1)

Imagine that you have won a shopping spree sweepstake at the local Walmart. Assuming that you know the layout of the store pretty well and have common sense on how much general merchandises are worth. Now for the next 2 minutes anything you grab are yours to keep for free, what would you do? Would you just start grabbing everything that are close to you such as orange juice, eggs, sausages, and breakfast cereals, or would you dash straight to that 60-inch LCD TV (or that 5 Carat diamond ring if you are a woman) at the furthest corner of the store? What is the best path you should take to maximize the total monetary value of the shopping spree?

Now just to make it a little bit more complicated, what if you only have 1 minute to grab things? Maybe you are asked to start from the cashier's lane and must return to the cashier's lane before your time runs out? What if your shopping cart was tinkered with and it doesn't roll backward? What if getting that 5 Carat diamond ring required a Walmart employee to unlock three things before you can get to it? What if you forgot to bring your glasses and everything looked totally blurry in front of your eyes? Looks like the wonderful dream of winning the sweepstake has just turned into a nightmare! "Why are you making it so hard for me?" you moan. And I shrug and tell you that those are all the challenges I face when I plan a coverage path for a UAV in support of Wilderness Search and Rescue operations.

The benefit of adding a UAV to the Wilderness Search and Rescue team is that now you have an eye in the sky and you can cover large areas quickly and also reach areas that are difficult for human on foot to reach sooner. When planning a coverage path for the UAV with a gimbaled camera, what we really care about is the path of the camera footprint. In our path-planning approach, we use a 4-connect grid to represent the probability distribution of where it is likely to find the missing person. Even though a fix-wing UAV might need to roll and follow a curvy path when it turns, the gimbaled camera can automatically adjust itself to always point straight down and the path of the camera footprint can include sharp 90 degrees turns. As the camera footprint covers an area, it "vacuums up" the probability within that area, and obviously the more probability we can "vacuums up" along the path, the more likely the UAV can spot the missing person.

When we evaluate how good a UAV path is, we focus on two factors: flight time and the amount of probability accumulated along the path. If a desired flight time is set (maybe due to the fact that the battery on the UAV only lasts for one hour), then the more probability we can accumulate, the better the path. If a desired amount of probability is expected (e.g., 80% probability of spotting the person from the UAV), then the sooner we can reach that goal, the better the path. My research focuses on the first type of case only where we plan a path for a given flight duration.

So how good or efficient is the path generated by our algorithm? A natural way to evaluate this is to compare the amount of probability the UAV accumulates along our path against what the UAV can accumulate along the best possible path and compute a percentage. A path with 50% efficiency means the path is half as good as the best we can do. The irony here is that we don't know what the best possible (optimal) path is, and searching for this optimal path might take a long time (years) especially when the probability distribution is complex (like how it is in real search and rescue scenarios), and it defeats the purpose of finding the missing person quickly. Many factors can also affect how the optimal path might turn out and change the total amount of probability accumulated if the UAV follows that path. Here I'll list the ones we must deal with.

1. Desired flight time

If the search region is very small, the UAV has 100% probability of detection (say we are searching in the Bonneville Salt Flats), and you have plenty of UAV flight time to completely comb the area many times, then life gets easier and you can be pretty sure that you will spot the missing person if the UAV follows a lawnmower or Zamboni flight pattern (assuming the missing person stays in a fixed location). If the search region is very large and you have a very short UAV flight time, then maybe there are areas you simple can never reach given the short flight duration. Remember the 2-minute shopping spree vs. a 1-minute one?

2. Starting position and possibly the ending position

If the UAV starts from the middle of the search region, the optimal path will most definitely not be the same as the one when the UAV starts from the edge of the search region. And if the UAV must return to a desired ending position (maybe for easy retrieval or returning to command base), time must be allocated for the UAV for the return flight. Ideally, while flying back, the UAV should still try to cover areas with high probabilities. In the example of the shopping spree case, if you are required to start from the cashier's lane and also return there before time runs out, you probably still want to grab things on your way back, maybe choosing a different route back.

3. Type of UAV (fix-wing vs. copter)

A fix-wing UAV must keep moving in the air in order to get enough lift to maintain airborne. It also cannot fly backward. But a copter type UAV doesn't have these restrictions. It can hover over a spot or fly backward anytime it wants. Therefore, the type of UAV we use can really change how the optimal path looks like. Remember the shopping cart that was tinkered with in your shopping experience?


4. Task difficulty (probability of detection)

Although the UAV provides the bird's eye view of the search area, some times we look but we don't see. Maybe because the dense vegetation makes spotting the missing person a very difficult task; maybe the weather is really bad with lowers the visibility; maybe the missing person is wearing a green jacket that blends in with the surroundings. This means the probability of detection might vary from case to case and search area to search area. When the probability of detection is low, maybe we should send the UAV to cover the area multiple times so we can search better. This factor really adds complexity to the evaluation of a UAV's path's efficiency. When it takes 30 seconds for the Walmart employee to unlock everything and get that 5 Carat diamond ring for you, is it worth the wait? Or maybe grabbing all those unlocked watches at $50 a piece in the neighboring section sounds like a better idea now?

Given all these complicated factors, I still need to find out how well my path-planning algorithm is performing in different search scenarios. In the following blog posts in this series, I'll go through each factor and discuss how we can reasonably evaluate the efficiency of a search path without knowing the optimal solution.


Video of the Day:

A video my friend Bev made when I showed her around the BYU campus!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research (Part 4)

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research Part 3

Top Conferences
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RSS -- Robotics: Science and Systems Conference

RSS is a single-track conference held annually that brings together researchers working on algorithmic or mathematical foundations of robotics, robotics applications, and analysis of robotics systems. The very low average acceptance rate of 25% makes the conference a very selective one. Accepted papers cover a wide range of topics such as kinematics/dynamic control, planning/algorithms, manipulation, human-robot interaction, robot perception, estimation and learning for robotic systems, and etc. One thing great about this conference is that all proceedings are available online for free

RSS is also a relatively new conference. The first ever RSS was held in 2005. However, the conference is growing quickly, attracting lead researchers in the robotics community with an expected attendance of over 400 for the next RSS conference. The conference also includes several workshops and tutorials. I have not submitted anything to the RSS conference in the past. It would be really nice if I could get a paper published here.

The next RSS conference RSS 2012 will be held at Sydney, Australia.
Conference Dates: June 27-July 1, 2012 (Roughly)
Submission Deadline: January 17, 2012 (Roughly)



SMC -- IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics

The SMC conference is a multi-track conference held annually. It provides an international forum for researchers and practitioners to report the latest innovations,
summarize the state-of-the-art, and exchange ideas and advances in all aspects of systems engineering, human-machine systems, and emerging cybernetics. Wikipedia defines the word Cybernetics as "the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems." Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory.


The SMC conference is sponsored by the Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, whose mission is: "... to serve the interests of its members and the community at large by promoting the theory, practice, and interdisciplinary aspects of systems science and engineering, human-machine systems, and cybernetics. It is accomplished through conferences, publications, and other activities that contribute to the professional needs of its members."

My interest in the conference lies in the human-machine systems track, especially under the topics of adjustable autonomy, human centered design, and human-robot interaction. This would be a good place to publish research related to UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and search and rescue robotics.

I have never submitted anything to this conference before and I can't find any information on the acceptance rate for the conference. But one thing for sure, this is not one of those "come and greet" conferences and all papers submitted go through a serious peer-review process.

The next SMC conference SMC 2011 will be held at Anchorage, Alaska, USA.
Conference Dates: October 9-12, 2011
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2011

The next SMC conference you can submit paper to is SMC 2012, which will be held in Seoul, Korea.
Conference Dates: October 7-10, 2012
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2012 (Roughly)

AI Robot Related Conferences and Journals For My Research Part 5






Why is every day so short? Wouldn't it be nice if we don't have to sleep?



Friday, April 10, 2009

How to find all the modes of a 3D probability distribution surface

A 3D probability distribution surface can represent the likelihood of certain events in a specific region where a higher point on the surface could mean it is more likely for the event to happen. For example, a 3D probability distribution surface created for a Wilderness Search and Rescue (WiSAR) operation, whether systematically or manually or with a hybrid, can show the searchers areas where it is more likely to find the missing person. The distribution map can be used to better allocate search resources and to generate flight paths for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).
An example 3D probability distribution surface
Because different path-planning algorithms may be better suited for different probability distributions (I appeal to the No-Free-Lunch theorem), identifying the type of distribution beforehand can help us decide what algorithm to use for the path-planning task. In our decision process, we particularly care about how many modes the probability distribution has. So how can we automatically identify all the modes in a 3D probability distribution surface? Here I'll describe the algorithm we used.

In our case, the 3D probability distribution surface is represented by a matrix/table where each value represents the height of the point. You can think of this distribution as a gray-scale image where the gray value of each pixel represent the height of the point. And we use a Local Hill Climbing type algorithm with 8-connected neighbors.

1. Down sample the distribution
If the distribution map is very large, it might be a good idea to down sample the distribution to improve algorithm speed. We assume the surface is noise-free. If the surface is noisy, we can also smooth it with a Gaussian filter (think image processing).

2. Check for a uniform distribution (a flat surface)
It is a good idea to check if the probability distribution is a uniform distribution. Just check to see if all values in the matrix are identical. If a uniform distribution is identified, we know the distribution has 0 mode and we are done.

3. Local Hill Climbing with Memory
Start from the a point of the surface and then check its neighbors (8-connected). As soon as a neighbor with the same or better value is found, we "climb" to that point. The process is repeated until we reach a point (hilltop) where all neighbors have smaller values. As we "climb" and check neighbors, we mark all the points we visited along the way. And when we check neighbors, we only check points we have not visited before. This way we avoid finding a mode we had found before. Once we find a "mode", we can start from another unvisited point on the surface and do another Local Hill Climbing. Here I use quotes around the word mode because we are not sure if the "mode" we found is a real mode.

4. Make sure the "mode" we found is a real mode
An Even-Height Great Wall
The "mode" we found using Local Hill Climbing might not actually be a real mode. It might be right next to a mode previously found and have a lower value (because we only checked unvisited neighbors in the previous step). It might also be part of another flat-surface mode where the mode consists of multiple points with identical values (think of a hilltop that looks like a plateau or think of a ridge). Things get even more complicated with special distributions such as this one on the right. And the "mode" point we found might be connected to a previously found mode through other points with the same value (e.g, the "mode" point is the end point of the short branch in the middle of the image.

Therefore, we need to keep track of all points leading to the final "mode" point that have identical values and check all the visited neighbors of these points, making sure this flat surface is not part of a previously found mode. If these points make up a real new mode, we mark these points with a unique mode count id (e.g, mode 3). If they are only part of a previous found mode, we mark these points so (e.g., mode 2). If one of them is right next to a previously found mode but have lower value, we mark these points as non-mode points. This step is almost like performing a Connected-Component Labeling operation in Computer Vision.

At the end of the algorithm run, we will have a count of how many modes the probability distribution has and also a map with all the mode points marked. With the Even-Height Great Wall distribution, the map would look just like the image (white pixels marking mode points) with 1 mode. And within Milli-seconds, the algorithm can identify the 4 modes in the example 3D surface above.

That's it! If you ever need to do this for your projects, you now know how!








Recursive functions work great for local hill climbing until you get a stack overflow.