Search for: All records

The hybrid nature of multi-contact robotic systems, due to making and breaking contact with the environment, creates significant challenges for high-quality control. Existing model-based methods typically rely on either good prior knowledge of the multi-contact model or require significant offline model tuning effort, thus resulting in low adaptability and robustness. In this paper, we propose a realtime adaptive multi-contact model predictive control framework, which enables online adaption of the hybrid multi-contact model and continuous improvement of the control performance for contact-rich tasks. This framework includes an adaption module, which continuously learns a residual of the hybrid model to minimize the gap between the prior model and reality, and a real-time multi-contact MPC controller. We demonstrated the effectiveness of the framework in synthetic examples, and applied it on hardware to solve contact-rich manipulation tasks, where a robot uses its end-effector to roll different unknown objects on a table to track given paths. The hardware experiments show that with a rough prior model, the multi-contact MPC controller adapts itself on-the-fly with an adaption rate around 20 Hz and successfully manipulates previously unknown objects with non-smooth surface geometries. Accompanying media can be found at: https://sites.google.com/view/adaptive-contact-implicit-mpc/home 

The prosperity of deep learning and automated machine learning (AutoML) is largely rooted in the development of novel neural networks -- but what defines and controls the "goodness" of networks in an architecture space? Test accuracy, a golden standard in AutoML, is closely related to three aspects: (1) expressivity (how complicated functions a network can approximate over the training data); (2) convergence (how fast the network can reach low training error under gradient descent); (3) generalization (whether a trained network can be generalized from the training data to unseen samples with low test error). However, most previous theory papers focus on fixed model structures, largely ignoring sophisticated networks used in practice. To facilitate the interpretation and understanding of the architecture design by AutoML, we target connecting a bigger picture: how does the architecture jointly impact its expressivity, convergence, and generalization? We demonstrate the "no free lunch" behavior in networks from an architecture space: given a fixed budget on the number of parameters, there does not exist a single architecture that is optimal in all three aspects. In other words, separately optimizing expressivity, convergence, and generalization will achieve different networks in the architecture space. Our analysis can explain a wide range of observations in AutoML. Experiments on popular benchmarks confirm our theoretical analysis. Our codes are attached in the supplement. 

Non‐native plants are typically released from specialist enemies but continue to be attacked by generalists, albeit at lower intensities. This reduced herbivory may lead to less investment in constitutive defences and greater investment in induced defences, potentially reducing defence costs. We compared herbivory on 27 non‐native and 59 native species in the field and conducted bioassays and chemical analyses on 12 pairs of non‐native and native congeners. Non‐natives suffered less damage and had weaker constitutive defences, but stronger induced defences than natives. For non‐natives, the strength of constitutive defences was correlated with the intensity of herbivory experienced, whereas induced defences showed the reverse. Investment in induced defences correlated positively with growth, suggesting a novel mechanism for the evolution of increased competitive ability. To our knowledge, these are the first linkages reported among trade‐offs in plant defences related to the intensity of herbivory, allocation to constitutive versus induced defences, and growth.

 

Flexible and stretchable bioelectronics provides a biocompatible interface between electronics and biological systems and has received tremendous attention for in situ monitoring of various biological systems. Considerable progress in organic electronics has made organic semiconductors, as well as other organic electronic materials, ideal candidates for developing wearable, implantable, and biocompatible electronic circuits due to their potential mechanical compliance and biocompatibility. Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), as an emerging class of organic electronic building blocks, exhibit significant advantages in biological sensing due to the ionic nature at the basis of the switching behavior, low driving voltage (<1 V), and high transconductance (in millisiemens range). During the past few years, significant progress in constructing flexible/stretchable OECTs (FSOECTs) for both biochemical and bioelectrical sensors has been reported. In this regard, to summarize major research accomplishments in this emerging field, this review first discusses structure and critical features of FSOECTs, including working principles, materials, and architectural engineering. Next, a wide spectrum of relevant physiological sensing applications, where FSOECTs are the key components, are summarized. Last, major challenges and opportunities for further advancing FSOECT physiological sensors are discussed.

 

A s a c om pl e men t t o da ta d edupli cat ion , de lta c om p ress i on fu r- t he r r edu c es t h e dat a vo l u m e by c o m pr e ssi n g n o n - dup li c a t e d ata chunk s r e l a t iv e to t h e i r s i m il a r chunk s (bas e chunk s). H ow ever, ex is t i n g p o s t - d e dup li c a t i o n d e l t a c o m pr e ssi o n a p- p ro a ches fo r bac kup s t or ag e e i t h e r su ffe r f ro m t h e l ow s i m - il a r i t y b e twee n m any de te c ted c hun ks o r m i ss so me po t e n - t i a l s i m il a r c hunks , o r su ffer f r om l ow (ba ckup and r es t ore ) th r oug hpu t du e t o extr a I/ Os f or r e a d i n g b a se c hun ks o r a dd a dd i t i on a l s e r v i c e - d i s r up t ive op e r a t i on s to b a ck up s ys t em s. I n t h i s pa p e r, w e pr opo se L oop D e l t a t o a dd ress the above - m e n t i on e d prob l e m s by an e nha nced em b e ddi n g d e l t a c o m p - r e ss i on sc heme i n d e dup li c a t i on i n a non - i n t ru s ive way. T h e e nha nce d d elt a c o mpr ess ion s che m e co m b in e s f our key t e c h - ni qu e s : (1) du a l - l o c a li t y - b a s e d s i m il a r i t y t r a c k i n g to d e t ect po t e n t i a l si m il a r chun k s b y e x p l o i t i n g both l o g i c a l and ph y - s i c a l l o c a li t y, ( 2 ) l o c a li t y - a wa r e pr e f e t c h i n g to pr efe tc h ba se c hun ks to a vo i d ex t ra I/ Os fo r r e a d i n g ba s e chun ks on t h e w r i t e p at h , (3) c a che -aware fil t e r to avo i d ext r a I/Os f or b a se c hunk s on t he read p at h, a nd (4) i nver sed de l ta co mpressi on t o perf orm de lt a co mpress i o n fo r d at a chunk s t hat a re o th e r wi se f o r b i dd e n to s er ve as ba se c hunk s by r ew r i t i n g t e c hn i qu e s d e s i g n e d t o i m p r ove r es t o re pe rf o rma nc e. E x p e r i m e n t a l re su lts indi ca te t hat L oop D e l t a i ncr ea se s t he c o m pr e ss i o n r a t i o by 1 .2410 .97 t i m e s on t op of d e dup li c a - t i on , wi t hou t no t a b l y a ffe c t i n g th e ba ck up th rou ghpu t, a nd i t i m p r ove s t he res to re p er fo r m an ce b y 1.23.57 t i m e