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Vision-based methods are commonly used in robotic arm activity recognition. These approaches typically rely on line-of-sight (LoS) and raise privacy concerns, particularly in smart home applications. Passive Wi-Fi sensing represents a new paradigm for recognizing human and robotic arm activi- ties, utilizing channel state information (CSI) measurements to identify activities in indoor environments. In this paper, a novel machine learning approach based on discrete wavelet transform and vision transformers for robotic arm activity recognition from CSI measurements in indoor settings is proposed. This method outperforms convolutional neural network (CNN) and long short- term memory (LSTM) models in robotic arm activity recognition, particularly when LoS is obstructed by barriers, without relying on external or internal sensors or visual aids. Experiments are conducted using four different data collection scenarios and four different robotic arm activities. Performance results demonstrate that wavelet transform can significantly enhance the accuracy of visual transformer networks in robotic arms activity recognition. 

This study addresses the challenge of selecting sensors for linear time-varying (LTV) systems dynamically. We present a framework that designs an online sparse sensor schedule with performance guarantees using randomized algorithms for large-scale LTV systems. Our approach calculates each sensor’s contribution at each time in real-time and immediately decides whether to keep or discard the sensor in the schedule, with no possibility of reversal. Additionally, we provide new performance guarantees that approximate the fully-sensed LTV system with a multiplicative approximation factor and an additive one by using a constant average number of active sensors at each time. We demonstrate the validity of our findings through several numerical examples. 

Despite the current surge of interest in autonomous robotic systems, robot activity recognition within restricted in- door environments remains a formidable challenge. Conventional methods for detecting and recognizing robotic arms’ activities often rely on vision-based or light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors, which require line-of-sight (LoS) access and may raise privacy concerns, for example, in nursing facilities. This research pioneers an innovative approach harnessing channel state in- formation (CSI) measured from WiFi signals, subtly influenced by the activity of robotic arms. We developed an attention- based network to classify eight distinct activities performed by a Franka Emika robotic arm in different situations. Our proposed bidirectional vision transformer-concatenated (BiVTC) methodology aspires to predict robotic arm activities accurately, even when trained on activities with different velocities, all without dependency on external or internal sensors or visual aids. Considering the high dependency of CSI data on the environment motivated us study the problem of sniffer location selection, by systematically changing the sniffer’s location and collecting different sets of data. Finally, this paper also marks the first publication of the CSI data of eight distinct robotic arm activities, collectively referred to as RoboFiSense. This initiative aims to provide a benchmark dataset and baselines to the research community, fostering advancements in the field of robotics sensing. 

This letter introduces a novel method for the stability analysis of positive feedback systems with a class of fully connected feedforward neural networks (FFNN) controllers. By establishing sector bounds for fully connected FFNNs without biases, we present a stability theorem that demonstrates the global exponential stability of linear systems under fully connected FFNN control. Utilizing principles from positive Lur’e systems and the positive Aizerman conjecture, our approach effectively addresses the challenge of ensuring stability in highly nonlinear systems. The crux of our method lies in maintaining sector bounds that preserve the positivity and Hurwitz property of the overall Lur’e system. We showcase the practical applicability of our methodology through its implementation in a linear system managed by a FFNN trained on output feedback controller data, highlighting its potential for enhancing stability in dynamic systems. 

This letter addresses the challenge of network synchronization under limited communication, involving heterogeneous agents with different dynamics and various network topologies, to achieve a consensus. We investigate the distributed adaptive control for interconnected unknown linear subsystems with a leader and followers, with the presence of input-output disturbance. We enhance the communication within multi-agent systems to achieve consensus under the leadership’s guidance. While the measured variable is similar among the followers, the incoming measurements are weighted and constructed based on their proximity to the leader. We also explore the convergence rates across various balanced topologies (Star-like, Cyclic-like, Path, Random), featuring different numbers of agents, using distributed first and high-order tuners. Moreover, we conduct several numerical simulations across various networks, agents and tuners to evaluate the effects of sparsity in the interaction between subsystems using the L2− norm and L∞− norm. Some networks exhibit a trend where an increasing number of agents results in smaller errors, although this is not universally the case. Additionally, patterns observed at initial times may not reliably predict overall performance across different networks. Finally, we demonstrate that the proposed modified high-order tuners outperform its counterpart, and we provide related insights along with our conclusions. 

In an epidemic network, lags due to travel time between populations, latent period, and recovery period can significantly change the epidemic behavior and result in successive echoing waves of the spread between various population clusters. Moreover, external shocks to a given population can propagate to other populations within the network, potentially snowballing into waves of resurgent epidemics. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of time delay and small shocks/uncertainties on the linear susceptible-infectious-susceptible (SIS) dynamics of epidemic networks. In this regard, the asymptotic stability of this class of networks is first studied, and then its performance loss due to small shocks/uncertainties is evaluated based on the notion of the norm. It is shown that network performance loss is correlated with the structure of the underlying graph, intrinsic time delays, epidemic characteristics, and external shocks. This performance measure is then used to develop an optimal traffic restriction algorithm for network performance enhancement, resulting in reduced infection in the metapopulation. A novel epidemic-based centrality index is also defined to evaluate the impact of every subpopulation on network performance, and its asymptotic behavior is investigated. It is shown that for specific choices of parameters, the output of the epidemic-based centrality index converges to the results obtained by local or eigenvector centralities. Moreover, given that epidemic-based centrality depends on the epidemic properties of the disease, it may yield distinct node rankings as the disease characteristics slowly change over time or as different types of infections spread. This node interlacing phenomenon is not observed in other centralities that rely solely on network structure. This unique characteristic of epidemic-based centrality enables it to adjust to various epidemic features. The derived centrality index is then adopted to improve the network robustness against external shocks on the epidemic network. The numerical results, along with the theoretical expectations, highlight the role of time delay as well as small shocks in investigating the most effective methods of epidemic containment.