Dynamical Systems and Optimal Control - lets.

The purpose of this reading group is for members to discuss and get to grips with advanced material in the areas of dynamical systems and control theory, beyond what is taught in the MSc lecture courses. The aim is to get a solid handle on advanced problems in control and the techniques used for solving them rather than debating their finer points. Meetings are organised by Yiming Yang, and are usually held on Mondays at 3pm in IF 1.16. Announcements are made through the DSOClets mailing list. Please note that some papers listed below are accessible only within the Informatics computer network.

Schedule

2014

Notice: Room change

• 28 July 3.02
• 9 June 4.02

  ---

• 28 April Vlad
  • STOMP: Stochastic Trajectory Optimization for Motion Planning
• 21 April No Meeting
• 14 April No Meeting
• 7 April Andreea
  • [http://nxr.northwestern.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Paper_108_CLAWAR.pdf], [ THE PASSIVE DYNAMICS OF WALKING AND BRACHIATING ROBOTS: RESULTS ON THE TOPOLOGY AND STABILITY OF PASSIVE GAITS], by LYNCH K M.
• 31st March No meeting
• 24th March Joe
  • [http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/CrowdInteractions/CrowdPhysicalInteractions_SCA13.pdf], [Velocity-Based Modeling of Physical Interactions in Multi-Agent Simulations], by Kim S, Guy S J, Manocha D, ACM, 2013.
• 17th March No meeting
• 10th March Vlad
  • Asymptotically near-optimal RRT for fast, high-quality, motion planning
• 3rd March (Room 4.02) Paul
  • Hierarchical Apprenticeship Learning with Application to Quadruped Locomotion, In NIPS (2007) by Zico J. Kolter, Pieter Abbeel, Andrew Y. Ng
• 24th February Peter
  • Synthesis of Detailed Hand Manipulations Using Contact Sampling by Yuting Ye, C. Karen Liu, published in ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH 2012)
• 17th February Jun
  • Efficient Synthesis of Physically Valid Human Motion, SIGGRAPH 2003
• 10th February Yiming
  • Reverse Control for Humanoid Robot Task Recognition, Hak, S., Mansard, N., Stasse, O., Laumond, J.P., Trans. on SMC 2012
• 3rd February Andreea
  • Modal Limit Cycle Control for Variable Stiffness Actuated Robots, ICRA 2013
• 20th January Michael Camilleri
  • Interaction Mesh Based Motion Adaptation for Biped Humanoid Robots, Shin’ichiro Nakaoka and Taku Komura
• 13th January Joe
  • Spectral-based Group Formation Control, Takahashi et al., 2009

2013

• 16th December Paul
  • Learning to recognize objects through curiosity-driven manipulation with the iCub humanoid robot (Video attacment)
  • Additional paper: Active Learning of Inverse Models with Intrinsically Motivated Goal Exploration in Robots
• 9th December Vlad
  • CHOMP: Covariant Hamiltonian optimization for motion planning, Zucker et al., IJRR 2013
• 2nd December Peter
  • 3D Walking Based on Online Optimization Feng, Xinjilefu, Huang and Atkeson, Humanoids 2013
  • Transferring functional grasps through contact warping and local replanning Hillenbrand and Roa, IROS 2012
• 25th November Jun
  • Leg Stiffness Adaptation for Running on Unknown Terrains, Bruce D. Miller, David Cartes and Jonathan E. Clark, IROS 2013
  • Reinforcement Learning of Single Legged Locomotion, Peter Fankhauser, Marco Hutter, Christian Gehring, Michael Bloesch, Mark A. Hoepflinger, Roland Siegwart, IROS 2013
  • Modeling and Control of A Pneumatic-Electric Hybrid System, Tatsuya Teramae, Tomoyuki Noda, Sang-Ho Hyon and Jun Morimoto, IROS 2013
  • Lightweight Hydraulic Leg to Explore Agile Legged Locomotion, Sang-Ho Hyon, Tomoo Yoneda, Daisuke Suewaka, IROS 2013
• 18th November Yiming
  • Planning pre-grasp manipulation for transport tasks
  • Pregrasp Manipulation as Trajectory Optimization
• 4th November Andreea
  • Adaptive Variable Structure Set-Point Control of Underactuated Robots
  • Minimum control effort trajectory planning and tracking of the CEDRA brachiation robot
• 28th October Hsiu-Chin
  • R. Vuga, M. Ogrinc, A. Gams, T. Petric and N. Sugimoto et al. Motion capture and reinforcement learning of dynamically stable humanoid movement primitives. 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013.
  • Zhao, Y., Kim, D. H., Fernandez, B., & Sentis, L. Phase Space Planning and Robust Control for Data-Driven Locomotion Behaviors. IEEE-RAS International Conference of Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2013)
    http://www.me.utexas.edu/~lsentis/files/Humanoids13-HCRL.pdf
• 21st October Michael
  • Bro and De Jong, A fast non-negativity-constrained least squares algorithm, Journal of Chemometrics 1997
  • Coons, Constrained Least-Squares, Comput. and Graphics 1978
• 14th October Joe
  • M. Katsev, J. Yu, and S. M. LaValle , Effcient Formation Path Planning on Large Graphs, ICRA 2013
  • Soares, Jorge Miguel; Aguiar, António Pedro; Pascoal, António; Martinoli, Alcherio, Joint ASV/AUV Range-Based Formation Control: Theory and Experimental Results, ICRA 2013

Machine Learning

Web: course description

• 16th September Benji 09-RL-exploration
• 9th September Hsiu-Chin 08-reinforcementLearning (slides 40-66)
• 2nd September Jun 08-reinforcementLearning (slides 1-39)
• 26th August Andreea 07-learning (slides 20-end HMM)
• 19th August Vlad 07-learning (slides 1-19 Gaussian Mixture)
• 10th June Hsiu-Chin 06-inference
• 20th May Joe 05-graphicalModels
• 13th May Benji 04-bayesianModelling
• 6th May Andreea 03-classification
• 29th April Vlad 02-Regression

2012

Optimal control book, Bryson and Ho (1975)

• 4th March Konrad Advanced methods in optimal control
• 25th February No meeting
  
• 18th February Jun iLQG method: Li and Todorov, Iterative linearization methods for approximately optimal control and estimation of non-linear stochastic systems, Int. J. of Control, 2007
• 11th February David Chapter 8.1-8.3
• 4th February Andreea Chapter 3.8-3.13
• 14th January Vlad Chapter 3.1-3.7
• 17th December-7 January Winter Break
• 3rd December Aris Chapter 7.5-7.8
• 26th November Joe Chapter 7.1-7.4
• 19th November (time change: 2pm) Prof. Wyatt Newman: DARPA Robotics Challenge
• 12th November Hsiu-Chin Chapter 6.6-6.11
• 5th November Sandy Chapter 6.1-6.5
• 29th October Jun Chapter 5
• 22nd October Benji Chapter 4
• 15th October David Introduction and Chapter 2

• 24th September Aris
  • S. Chatzis, D. Korkinof and Y. Demiris, “A Quantum-Statistical Approach Towards Robot Learning by Demonstration”, IEEE Transactions on Robotics
• 17th September Benji
  • Heuristic Selection of Actions in Multiagent Reinforcement Learning, Reinaldo A. C. Bianchi, Carlos H. C. Ribeiro, Anna H. R. Costa
  • Contextual Sequence Prediction with Application to Control Library Optimization, Debadeepta Dey, Tian Yu Liu, Martial Hebert, J. Andrew Bagnell
• 3rd September Sandy
  • A physical model of sensorimotor interactions during locomotion, Klein and Lewis, 2012
  • A neurorobotic model of bipedal locomotion based on principles of human neuromuscular architecture, Klein and Lewis, ICRA 2012.
• 13th August Konrad ICML 2012 papers
  • Learning Parameterized Skills, Bruno Da Silva, George Konidaris, Andrew Barto
  • Path Integral Policy Improvement with Covariance Matrix Adaptation, Freek Stulp, Olivier Sigaud
  • Depending on time: Agnostic System Identification for Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, Stephane Ross, Drew Bagnell
• 6th August Andreea AIM2012 paper
  • Hanazawa, Yamakita, Limit Cycle Running Based on Flat-Footed Passive Dynamic Walking with Mechanical Impedance at Ankles, AIM 201, video
• 30th July Vlad RSS 2012 papers
  • Gioioso, G., Salvietti, G., Malvezzi, M., & Prattichizzo, D., An Object-Based Approach to Map Human Hand Synergies onto Robotic Hands with Dissimilar Kinematics, RSS 2012
  • Vernaza, P., Narayanan, V., & Likhachev, M., Efficiently finding optimal winding- constrained loops in the plane, RSS 2012
  • Zelazo, D., Franchi, A., Allg, F., & Heinrich, H. B., Rigidity Maintenance Control for Multi-Robot Systems, RSS 2012
• 9th June-23rd July Summer break
• 2nd July Joe
  • "Group Motion Editing" by Kwon et al (2008)
  • "Morphable Crowds" by Ju et al (2010)
• 25th June No meeting
• 11th June Majd
  • Coordination in multiagent reinforcement learning: a Bayesian approach, Georgios Chalkiadakis and Craig Boutilier
• 4th June Shinichiro
  • Simultaneous Tracking and Balancing of Humanoid Robots for Imitating Human Motion Capture Data, Katsu Yamane and Jessica Hodgins
  • Supplemetary papers:
  • Control-Aware Mapping of Human Motion Data with Stepping for Humanoid Robots, Katsu Yamane and Jessica Hodgins
  • Controlling Humanoid Robots with Human Motion Data: Experimental Validation, Katsu Yamane, Stuart O. Anderson, and Jessica K. Hodgins
• 28th May Jun
  • Long, Murphy, and Lynch, "Optimal motion planning for a class of hybrid dynamical systems with impacts"
• 21st May Sandy
  • A Compliant Hybrid Zero Dynamics Controller for Stable, Efficient and Fast Bipedal Walking on MABEL by Sreenath, Park, Poulakakis and Grizzle:
• 30th April Aris
  • Reinforcement learning to adjust parametrized motor primitives to new situations by Jens Kober, AndreasWilhelm , Erhan Oztop, Jan Peters
• 23rd April David
  • Anton S. Shiriaev, Leonid B. Freidovich, Anders Robertsson, Rolf Johansson, and Anders Sandberg, Virtual-Holonomic-Constraints-Based Design of Stable Oscillations of Furuta Pendulum: Theory and Experiments, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 23, no. 4, 2007.
  • Anton Shiriaev, John W. Perram, and Carlos Canudas-de-Wit, Constructive Tool for Orbital Stabilization of Underactuated Nonlinear Systems: Virtual Constraints Approach, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 50, no. 8, 2005.
• 9th April Hsiu-Chin
  • Smooth and Continuous Human Gait Phase Detection Based on Foot Pressure Patterns, Kyoungchul Kong and Masayoshi Tomizuka, Humanoids 2008
  • Determination of Human Gait Phase Using Fuzzy Inference, Chad MacDonald , Darla Smith, Richard Brower, Martine Ceberio, Thompson Sarkodie-Gyan, 2007 IEEE 10th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics
• 26th March Chris
  • Pointing with the wrist: a postural model for Donders’ law, Campolo, D. and Widjaja, F. and Esmaeili, M. and Burdet, E., Experimental brain research 2011
• 12th March Evelina
  • A shared resource between declarative memory and motor memory. A Keisler and R Shadmehr (2010) Journal of Neuroscience 30:14915-14924
• 27th February Benji
  • MOSAIC for Multiple-Reward Environments, Norikazu Sugimoto, Masahiko Haruno, Kenji Doya, Mitsuo Kawato, Neural Computation March 2012, Vol. 24, No. 3: 577-606
• 20th February Andreea
  • Adaptive self-protective motion based on reflex control, IJCNN 2011
• 13th February No meeting
• 6th February Majd
  • Probabilistic policy reuse in a reinforcement learning agent
  • Probabilistic Policy Reuse for inter-task transfer learning
• 16th January Konrad
  • What Is Optimal about Motor Control?, Karl Friston, Neuron 72:488–498, 2011

2011

• 19th December-9th January Winter break
• 12th December Matt: Higham, D. An Algorithmic Introduction to Numerical Simulation of Stochastic Differential Equation, 2001
• 5th December Adam: Papers from Motion in Games (MIG) 2011
  • Improved Benchmarking for Crowd Simulations - Mubbasir Kapadia, Matthew Wang, Glenn Reinman, Petros Faloustos
  • Intelligent Camera Control Using Behavior Trees (webpage)- D. Markowitz, J. Kider, A.
  • Reactive Virtual Creatures for Dexterous Physical Interactions - Hironori Mitake, Shoichi Hasegawa, and Makoto Sato
• 28th November Joe: Papers from Motion in Games (MIG) 2011
  • 1. "Natural User Interface for Physics-Based Character Animation" C. Karen Liu and Victor B. Zordan
  • 2. "Feature-Based Locomotion with Inverse Branch Kinematics" Mentar Mahmudi and Marcelo Kallmann
  • 3. "Space-time planning in dynamic environments with unknown evolution" T. Lopez, F. Lamarche, T.-Y. Li
    Optional:
  • 4. "Twisting, Tearing and Flicking Effects in String Animation" Rungjiratananon et al.
• 21st November Vlad
  • 1. Bhattacharya S. Identification and Representation of Homotopy Classes of Trajectories for Search-based Path Planning in 3D. In: Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems. Los Angeles, CA, USA; 2011.
  • 2. Frank B, Stachniss C, Abdo N, Burgard W. Efficient motion planning for manipulation robots in environments with deformable objects. In: Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on. IEEE; 2011:2180–2185.
  • 3. Lu Y, Lien JM. Finding critical changes in dynamic configuration spaces. In: Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on. IEEE; 2011:2626–2631.
• 14th November Takeshi (Humanoids papers):
  • 1. Bauml, Birbach Wimbock Frese, Dietrich and Hirzinger, “Catching flying balls with a mobile humanoid: system overview and design considerations”
  • 2. Stulp and Schaal, “Hierarchical reinforcement learning with movement primitives”
  • 3. Nemec and Ude, “Exploiting previous experience to constrain robot sensorimotor learning”
  • 4. Kuindersma, Grupen and Barto, “Learning dynamic arm motions for postural recovery”
• 7th November Room change 3.02 Sandy:
  • JG. D. Karssen and M. Wisse, Running with improved disturbance rejection by using non-linear leg springs, IJRR 2011
• 31st October Stathis:
  • Kinect Fusion: youtube
  • KinectFusion: Real-time 3D Reconstruction and Interaction Using a Moving Depth Camera
  • KinectFusion: Real-Time Dense Surface Mapping and Tracking
  • Optional: Grasping Novel Objects with Depth Segmentation
• 24th October Jun: IROS papers
  • Gait support with Electrical Stimulation using model predictive control
    • Mitsuhiro Hayashibe, Qin Zhang and Christine Azevedo-Coste, Dual Predictive Control of Electrically Stimulated Muscle using Biofeedback for Drop Foot Correction
  • Exoskeleton for gait rehabilitation
    • Ozer Unluhisarcikli, Maciej Pietrusinski, Brian Weinberg, Paolo Bonato, and Constantinos Mavroidis, Design and Control of a Robotic Lower Extremity Exoskeleton for Gait Rehabilitation
    • Ping Wang, K. H. Low, A. H. McGregor , A Subject-based Motion Generation Model with Adjustable Walking Pattern for a Gait Robotic Trainer: NaTUre-gaits
    • Sang-Ho Hyon, Jun Morimoto, Takamitsu Matsubara, Tomoyuki Noda and Mitsuo Kawato, XoR: Hybrid Drive Exoskeleton Robot That Can Balance
  • Exoskeleton for gait support (not for rehabilitation)
    • Atsushi Tsukahara, Yasuhisa Hasegawa and Yoshiyuki Sankai, Gait Support for Complete Spinal Cord Injury Patient by Synchronized Leg-Swing with HAL
    • Katherine A. Strausser and H. Kazerooni, [The Development and Testing of a Human Machine Interface for a Mobile Medical Exoskeleton
• 17th October Aris: IROS papers
  • J. Gillula, C. Tomlin, Guaranteed Safe Online Learning of a Bounded System
  • N. Aghasadegi, T. Bretl, Inverse Reinforcement Learning using Path Integrals
  • Z. Wang, C. Lampert, K. Mulling, B. Scholkopf, J. Peters, Learning Anticipation Policies for Robot Table Tennis
  • (Bonus) S. Kajita, T. Nakano, M. Goto, Y. Matsusaka, S. Nakaoka, K. Yokoi, VocaWatcher: Natural Singing Motion Generator for a Humanoid Robot
• 10th October Cancelled
  
• 3rd October Chris: Goal Babbling Permits Direct Learning of Inverse Kinematics, Rolf, M. and Steil, J.J. and Gienger, M., IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 2010
• 26th September Benji: Policy Recognition in the Abstract Hidden Markov Model, Hung H. Bui, Svetha Venkatesh, Geoff West
• 19th September Majd:
  • Aspiration learning in coordination games, G.C. Chasparis, J.S. Shamma, and A. Arapostathis
  • (optional) Learning by trial and error, H. Peyton Young
• 12th September Cancelled
• 6th September, Tue, 12:30pm (Date and time changed) Evelina: Nagengast AJ, Braun DA & Wolpert DM (In press), Risk-sensitivity in a motor task with speed-accuracy trade-off, Journal of Neurophysiology
• 29th August Jun: Tedrake, R., Manchester, I., Tobenkin, M., & Roberts, J. (2010). LQR-trees: Feedback motion planning via Sums-of-Squares verification. International Journal of Robotic Research
• 22nd August David (RSS 2011 papers)
  
  • Operational space control of constrained and underactuated systems, Michael Mistry, Ludovic Righetti
  • Real-time prioritized kinematic control under inequality constraints for redundant manipulators, Oussama Kanoun
• 25th July-15 August: summer break
• 18th July Cancelled
• 11th July David (RSS 2011 papers)
  • Invited Talk: Balance: brooms, standing, walking and biking, Andy Ruina
  • A Bicycle Can Be Self-Stable Without Gyroscopic or Caster Effects, D. G. Kooijman, J. P. Meijaard, Jim M. Papadopoulos, Andy Ruina and A., L. Schwab, Science 15 April 2011, Vol. 332 no. 6027 pp. 339-342.
  • Infinite-horizon model predictive control for periodic tasks with contacts, Tom Erez, Yuval Tassa, Emanuel Todorov
  • Supplementary material: A Bicycle Can Be Self-Stable Without Gyroscopic or Caster Effects, D. G. Kooijman, J. P. Meijaard, Jim M. Papadopoulos, Andy Ruina and A. L. Schwab, Science 15 April 2011, Vol. 332 no. 6027 pp. 339-342.
• 4th July Takeshi:
  • A Game-Theoretic Approach to Apprenticeship Learning, Umar Syed, Robert E. Schapire
  • Adaptive Game Playing Using Multiplicative Weights, Yoav Freund and Robert E. Schapire
• 27th June Konrad:
  • Exact Analytic Solutions for Optimal Control Problems Under Multiplicative Noise, D. Huh, T. J. Sejnowski
  • Energy Efficient Control of Robots with Variable Stiffness Actuators, Ludo C. Visser, Raffaella Carloni, Stefano Stramigioli
• 20th June Efstathios:
  • Interactive Segmentation of Articulated Objects in 3D, Dov Katz,Oliver Brock , Robotics and Biology Laboratory Technische Universitat Berlin
  • Visual Object-Action Recognition: Inferring Object Afordances from Human Demonstration, Hedvig Kjellstrom, Javier Romero, Danica Kragic
  • (optional)
    Describing objects by their attributes, A. Farhadi, I. Endres, D. Hoiem, and D.A. Forsyth,
• 13th June Sandy:
  • Exploiting Natural Dynamics for Energy Minimization using an Actuator with Adjustable Stiffness (AwAS) by Jafari, Tsagarakis and Caldwell.
  • (Optional) Multiple-priority impedance control by Platt, Abdallah and Wampler
• 7th June (Tue), IF 5.02 Matt: ICRA 2011 papers
  • A Decoupled Impedance Observer for a Variable Stiffness Robot, Alessandro Serio, Giorgio Grioli, Irene Sardellitti, Nikos G. Tsagarakis & Antonio Bicchi
  • Residual-based Stiffness Estimation in Robots with Flexible Transmissions, Fabrizio Flacco & Alessandro De Luca
  • A Real-time Parametric Stiffness Observer for VSA devices, Giorgio Grioli & Antonio Bicchi
  • (optional) Multiple-priority impedance control, Robert Platt Jr, Muhammad Abdallah, and Charles Wampler
• 30th May Aris Valtazanos: Applications of hybrid reachability analysis to robotic aerial vehicles, J. Gillula, G. Hoffmann, H. Huang, M. Vitus and C. Tomlin
• 23rd May Cancelled
• 16th May Hsiu-Chin
  • Sections 3 and 4 of Chapter 3, Computational Topology: An Introduction, Edelsbrunner and Hare
• 9th May Joe
  • Sections 1 and 2 of Chapter 3, Computational Topology: An Introduction, Edelsbrunner and Hare
• 2nd May Vladimir Ivan:
  • Sections 3 and 4 of Chapter 2, Computational Topology: An Introduction, Edelsbrunner and Hare
• 25th April No meeting
• 18th April Vladimir Ivan:
  • Sections 1 and 2 of Chapter 2, Computational Topology: An Introduction, Edelsbrunner and Hare
• 11th April Chris Towell:
  • Chapter 1, Computational Topology: An Introduction, Edelsbrunner and Harer
• 4th April Benjamin Rosman: Local metrical and global topological maps in the hybrid spatial semantic hierarchy, B Kuipers, J Modayil, P Beeson, M MacMahon , F Savelli, ICRA 2004
• 28th March Cancelled
• 21st March Majd Hawasly: Recent Advances in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning, Barto, A. & Mahadevan, S., Journal of Discrete Events Dynamic Systems, 2003
• 14th March Cancelled
• 7th March David Braun: Optimal Control Theory, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, 1970, Chapters 3 and 5., D. E. Kirk
• 28th February No meeting
  
• 21st February Takeshi Mori:
  • Algorithms for Inverse Reinforcement Learning, A. Y. Ng and S. Russell, ICML 2000
  • Apprenticeship Learning via Inverse Reinforcement Learning, P. Abbeel and A. Y. Ng, ICML 2004
  • Exploration and Apprenticeship Learning in Reinforcement Learning, P. Abbeel and A. Y. Ng, ICML 2005
• 14th February Evelina Overling: Force field adaptation can be learned using vision in the absence of proprioceptive error, A Melendez-Calderon, L Masia, R Gassert, G Sandini and E Burdet
• 7th February Jun Nakanishi:
  • First-exit model predictive control of fast discontinuous dynamics: Application to ball bouncing, Kulchenko P and Todorov, To appear in ICRA 2011
  • Supplemental materials
  • Open loop stable control strategies for robot juggling, Schaal, S.; Atkeson, C.G., ICRA 1993
  • Further progress in robot juggling: the spatial two-juggle, Rizzi, A.A.; Koditschek, D.E., ICRA 1993
    
• 31st January Konrad Rawlik:NIPS papers
  • RL Algorithms
  • LSTD with Random Projections
  • Natural Policy Gradient Methods with Parameter-based Exploration for Control Tasks
  • On a Connection between Importance Sampling and the Likelihood Ratio Policy Gradient
  • Apprenticeship Learning
  • A Reduction from Apprenticeship Learning to Classification
  • Bootstrapping Apprenticeship Learning
  • Movement Primitives
  • Switched Latent Force Models for Movement Segmentation
  • Movement extraction by detecting dynamics switches and repetitions
  • Other
  • Reward Design via Online Gradient Ascent
  • Basis Construction from Power Series Expansions of Value Functions
• 24th January Efstathios Vafeias:
  • Robotic Grasping of Novel Objects, Ashutosh Saxena, Justin Driemeyer, Justin Kearns, Andrew Y. Ng. In NIPS 19, 2006.
  • Perception for Mobile Manipulation and Grasping using Active Stereo, Rusu, Radu Bogdan, Holzbach Andreas, Diankov Rosen, Bradski Gary, and Beetz Michael. In Humanoids 12/2009
• 17th January Joe Henry:
  • Adrien Treuille, Seth Cooper, Zoran Popovic, Continuum Crowds, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) - Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH 2006, Volume 25 Issue 3, July 2006
  • Rahul Narain, Abhinav Golas, Sean Curtis, Ming C. Lin, Aggregate dynamics for dense crowd simulation, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) - Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, Volume 28 Issue 5, December 2009
• 10th January Hsiu-Chin Lin:
  • A. Gams, A. Ijspeert, S. Schaal, and J. Lenarcic, On-line learning and modulation of periodic movements with nonlinear dynamical systems, Autonomous Robots, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 3-23, 2009.
  • Gams A., Do M., Ude A., Asfour T., and Dillmann R., On-Line Periodic Movement and Force-Profile Learning for Adaptation to New Surfaces, Humanoids 2010
  • Calinon, S., D'halluin, F., Sauser, E.L., Caldwell, D.G., Billard, A.G., Learning and Reproduction of Gestures by Imitation, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol.17, no.2, pp.44-54, June 2010 (optional)

2010

• 13th December-3rd January: winter break
• 6th December Vladimir Ivan:
  • Vernaza P, Lee D, Yi S. Learning and planning high-dimensional physical trajectories via structured Lagrangians. ICRA 2010
  • Melchior N, Simmons R. Dimensionality reduction for trajectory learning from demonstration. ICRA 2010, pp. 2953-2958
• 29th November Sandy Enoch:
  • A Muscle-Reflex Model That Encodes Principles of Legged Mechanics Produces Human Walking Dynamics and Muscle Activities, Hartmut Geyer and Hugh Herr, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 18, no. 3, June 2010
  • Compliant leg behaviour explains basic dynamics of walking and running, Hartmut Geyer, Andre Seyfarth and Reinhard Blickhan, Proc. R. Soc. B 2006 273, 2861-2867 (optional)
• 22nd November Hannes Saal: IROS papers
  • Incremental Learning of Subtasks from Unsegmented Demonstration, Grollman, Daniel; Jenkins, Odest Chadwicke
  • Strategies for Multi-Modal Scene Exploration, Bohg, Jeannette; Johnson-Roberson, Matthew; Björkman, MÃ¥rten; Kragic, Danica
  • SKYLINE2GPS: Localization in Urban Canyons Using Omni-Skylines, Ramalingam, Srikumar; Bouaziz, Sofien; Sturm, Peter; Brand, Matthew
• 15th November Ioannis Havoutis: IROS papers
  • A Study of Function of Foot’s Medial Longitudinal Arch Using Biped Humanoid Robot, Kenji Hashimoto, Yuki Takezaki, Kentaro Hattori, Hideki Kondo,Takamichi Takashima, Hun-ok Lim, and Atsuo Takanishi
  • The Design of an Anthropomorphic Dexterous Humanoid Foot, S. Davis, Darwin G. Caldwell
• 8th November Chris Towell: IROS papers
  • Imitation Learning of Globally Stable Non-Linear Point-To-Point Robot Motions Using Nonlinear Programming, Khansari-Zadeh, Seyed Mohammad; Billard, Aude
  • Learning-Based Control Strategy for Safe Human-Robot Interaction Exploiting Task and Robot Redundancies, Calinon, Sylvain; Sardellitti, Irene; Caldwell, Darwin G.
  • Constrained Resolved Acceleration Control for Humanoids, Dariush, Behzad; Bin Hammam, Ghassan; Orin, David
• 1st November Matt Howard: IROS papers
  • New Insights Concerning Intrinsic Joint Elasticity for Safety Sami Haddadin, Alin Albu-Schaeffer, Oliver Eiberger, and Gerd Hirzinger IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2010
  • A New Mechanical Structure for Adjustable Stiffness Devices with Lightweight and Small Size Mitsunori Uemura and Sadao Kawamura IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2010
  • A Novel Actuator with Adjustable Stiffness (AwAS ) Amir Jafari, Nikos G. Tsagarakis, Bram Vanderborght and Darwin G. Caldwell IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2010
  • Antagonistically Actuated Compliant Joint: Torque and Stiffness Control I. Sardellitti , G. Palli, N. G. Tsagarakis and D. G. Caldwell IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2010
  • PDFs can be found here:
• 25th October Aris Valtazanos:
  • LQG-MP: Optimized Path Planning for Robots with Motion Uncertainty and Imperfect State Information J. V. D. Berg, P. Abbeel and K. Goldberg
  • Reciprocal n-body Collision Avoidance, J.V.D. Berg, S. Guy, M. Lin, D. Manocha
• 18th October Konrad Rawlik:
  • Broek J.L. van den, Wiegerinck W.A.J.J., Kappen H.J. Risk sensitive path integral control, UAI, vol. 26, pp. 1-8, 2010
  • Tetsuro Morimura, Masashi Sugiyama, Hisashi Kashima, Hirotaka Hachiya, and Toshiyuki Tanaka, Nonparametric Return Distribution Approximation for Reinforcement Learning, In Proc. 27th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML2010)
• 11th October Majd Hawasly: Chapter Three: Robotic network models and complexity notions from Distributed Control of Robotic Networks: A Mathematical Approach to Motion Coordination Algorithms, Francesco Bullo, Jorge Cortes and Sonia Martinez. Princeton University Press, 2009
• 4th October Benjamin Rosman:
  • Dealing with non-stationary environments using context detection, BC da Silva, EW Basso, ALC Bazzan, PM Engel, ICML 2006
  • Relativized options: Choosing the right transformation, B Ravindran, AG Barto, ICML 2003
• 27th September David Braun:
  • The Actuator With Mechanically Adjustable Series Compliance, Jonathan W. Hurst, Joel E. Chestnutt, and Alfred A. Rizzi, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 26, NO. 4, AUGUST 2010 597-606
  • A concept for a new Energy Efficient Actuator, Stefano Stramigioli Gijs van Oort Edwin Dertien Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, July 2 - 5, 2008, Xi'an, China
• 20th September Takeshi Mori: RL in finite horizon
  • Li and Littman, Annals of Mathematics and Artifcial Intelligence, (2010) Reducing reinforcement learning to KWIK online regression
  • Bhatnagar and Abdulla, Simulation (2008) Simulation-Based Optimization Algorithms for Finite-Horizon Markov Decision Processes
  • Garcia and Ndiaye, ICML (1998) A Learning Rate Analysis of Reinforcement Learning Algorigthm in Finite-Horizon
• 13th September Jun Nakanishi: Movement optimization using DDP
  • Morimoto J, Atkeson CG, Minimax Differential Dynamic Programming: An Application to Robust Biped Walking. NIPS 2002
  • Yuting Ye, C. Karen Liu, Optimal Feedback Control for Character Animation Using an Abstract Model. ACM Trans. Graph. 2010
• 6th September Taku Komura: Papers from SIGGRAPH 2010
  • Lee, Kim and Lee, Data-Driven Biped Control
  • http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~van/papers/2010-TOG-gbwc/index.html
  • http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~kkyin/
  • http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~jmwang/optuie/
• 30th August Cancelled
• 23rd August Evelina Overlingaite: Nagengast AJ, Braun DA & Wolpert DM, Risk-sensitive optimal feedback control accounts for sensorimotor behavior under uncertainty. PLoS Computational Biology, 2010 (in press)
• 16th August Aris Valtazanos: Lars Blackmore et al, A Probabilistic Particle-Control Approximation of Chance-Constrained Stochastic Predictive Control. Transactions on Robotics, 2010
• 9th August Chris Towell: Chalodhorn, Grimes, Grochow, Rao, Learning to Walk by Imitation in Low-Dimensional Subspaces. Advanced Robotics, Volume 24, Numbers 1-2, 2010, pp. 207-232(26)
• 19th July-2nd August: summer break
• 12th July Konrad Rawlik: Hudson TE, Maloney LT, Landy MS. Optimal Compensation for Temporal Uncertainty in Movement Planning. PLoS Comput Biol 4(7), 2008
• 5th July Cancelled
• 28th June Ioannis Havoutis:
  • 1. Mrinal Kalakrishnan, Jonas Buchli, Peter Pastor, Michael Mistry, and Stefan Schaal. Fast, Robust Quadruped Locomotion over Challenging Terrain. In ICRA 2010
  • 2. Matt Zucker J. Andrew Bagnell Christopher G. Atkeson James Kuffner. An Optimization Approach to Rough Terrain Locomotion. In ICRA 2010
  • 3. David Wooden, Matthew Malchano, Kevin Blankespoor, Andrew Howardy, Alfred A. Rizzi, and Marc Raibert. Autonomous Navigation for BigDog. In ICRA 2010
• 21st June (Time changed 1pm) Benjamin Rosman:
  • 1. Advait Jain and Charles C. Kemp. Pulling Open Doors and Drawers: Coordinating an Omni-Directional Base and a Compliant Arm with Equilibrium Point Control. In ICRA 2010
  • 2. Sachin Chitta, Benjamin Cohen, Maxim Likhachev. Planning for Autonomous Door Opening with a Mobile Manipulator. In ICRA 2010
  • 3. Jeremy Maitin-Shepard, Marco Cusumano-Towner, Jinna Lei and Pieter Abbeel. Cloth Grasp Point Detection based on Multiple-View Geometric Cues with Application to Robotic Towel Folding. In ICRA 2010
  • 4. Wim Meeussen, Melonee Wise, Stuart Glaser, Sachin Chitta, Conor Mc Gann, Patrick Mihelich, Eitan Marder-Eppstein, Marius Muja, Victor Eruhimov, Tully Foote, John Hsu, Radu Bogdan Rusu, Bhaskara Marthi, Gary Bradski, Kurt Konolige, Brian Gerkey, Eric Berger. Autonomous Door Opening and Plugging In with a Personal Robot. In ICRA 2010
• 14th June Matt Howard:
  • 1. Byeong-Sang Kim and Jae-Bok Song. Hybrid Dual Actuator Unit: A Design of a Variable Stiffness Actuator based on an Adjustable Moment Arm Mechanism. In ICRA 2010
  • 2. Devin Neal, Harry Asada. Phased-Array Piezoelectric Actuators Using a Buckling Mechanism Having Large Displacement Amplification and Nonlinear Stiffness. In ICRA 2010
  • 3. Matteo Laffranchi, Nikos G. Tsagarakis, and Darwin G.Caldwell. A Variable Physical Damping Actuator (VPDA) for Compliant Robotic Joints. In ICRA 2010
  • 4. Lael Odhner and Harry Asada. Scaling Up Shape Memory Alloy Actuators using a Recruitment Control Architecture. In ICRA 2010
  • 5. Alin Albu-Schaffer, S. Wolf, O. Eiberger, S. Haddadin, F. Petit, and M. Chalon. Dynamic Modelling and Control of Variable Stiffness Actuators. In ICRA 2010
• 7th June David Braun:
  • 1. Uwe, Shiriaev, Freidovich, and Sampei. Optimal Ball Pitching with an Under-actuated Model of a Human Arm. In ICRA 2010, pp. 5009-5014
  • 2. Mistry, Buchli, and Schaal. Inverse dynamics control of floating based systems using orthogonal decomposition. In ICRA 2010, pp. 3406-3412
• 1st June (Tuesday, Rm 3.02) Jun Nakanishi:
  • 1. Ganesh, Albu-Schaeffer, Haruno, Kawato and Burdet. Biomimetic motor behavior for simultaneous adaptation of force, impedance and trajectory in interaction tasks. In ICRA 2010, pp. 2705-2711
  • 2. Uemura and Kawamura. Resonance-based Task Space Controller for Multi-Joint Robot with Adjustable Equilibrium Angle of Elastic Element. In ICRA 2010, pp. 825-830
• 24th May Evelina Overlingaite:
  • 1. Neubert J, Ferrier NJ. Motion Generation Through Biologically – Inspired Torque Pulses. In: ICRA.; 2010:4157-4162
  • 2. Toit NE, Burdick JW. Robotic Motion Planning in Dynamic , Cluttered , Uncertain Environments. In: ICRA.; 2010:966-973
  • 3. Mellinger D, Kumar V. Control and Planning for Vehicles with Uncertainty in Dynamics. In: ICRA.; 2010:960-965
  • 4. Nguyen-tuong D, Peters J. Using Model Knowledge for Learning Inverse Dynamics. In: ICRA.; 2010:2677-2682
  • Note: 3 or 4 undecided yet
• 17th May Takeshi Mori: Ramachandran, D. & Amir, E. Bayesian Inverse Reinforcement Learning International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2006
• 10th May Majd Hawasly: 1) EA Hansen, DS Bernstein, S Zilberstein Dynamic programming for partially observable stochastic games, 2004, 2) A Kumar, S Zilberstein Dynamic programming approximations for partially observable stochastic games, 2009
• 3rd May Bank Holiday
• 26th April Aris Valtazanos: 1) Pierre-Brice Wieber Trajectory Free Linear Model Predictive Control for Stable Walking in the Presence of Strong Perturbations, 2) Kajita and Tani Experimental Study of Biped Dynamic Walking in the Linear Inverted Pendulum Mode (cited in the document of the new NAO walking engine)
• 19th April Postponed
• 12th April Chris Towell: Tahara et al On control of reaching movements for musculo-skeletal redundant arm model, 2009, supplemental material: K. Tahara and H. Kino, Reaching movements of a redundant musculo-skeletal arm: Acquisition of an adequate internal force by iterative learning and its evaluation through a dynamic damping ellipsoid, Advanced Robotics, 2010
• 15th March Ioannis Havoutis: Morimoto, Atkeson Nonparametric representation of an approximated Poincaré map for learning biped locomotion, 2009
• 8th March Konrad Rawlick:
• 1st March Evelina Overlingaite: Todorov Optimal Control Theory Chapter from Bayesian Brain: Probabilistic Approaches to Neural Coding, 2007
• 22nd February Benjamin Rosman: Pasula, Zettlemoyer, Kaelbling Learning symbolic models of stochastic domains, 2007
• 15th February Matt Howard : Antoulas and Sorensen Approximation of Large-Scale Dynamical Systems: An Overview, 2001
• 8th February Chris Towell: Khatib, Sentis, Park A Unified Framework for Whole-Body Humanoid Robot Control with Multiple Constraints and Contacts, 2008
• 1st February Majd Hawasly: Foster, Vohra; Regret in the On-line Decision Problem, 1999
• 25th January Evelina Overlingaite: Alissandrakis; Nehaniv; Dautenhahn;Correspondence Mapping Induced State and Action Metrics for Robotic Imitation, 2007
• 18th January Aris Valtazanos: Hauser, B. & Latombe, J-C. Multi-modal Motion Planning in Non-expansive Spaces, 2009.

2009

• 14th December Stefan Klanke: Siciliano, B. & Khatib, O. (ed.) Handbook of Robotics, Chapter 2. Dynamics. Springer, 2008
• 7th December Ben Rosman: Siciliano, B. & Khatib, O. (ed.) Handbook of Robotics, Chapter 5. Motion Planning. Springer, 2008
• 30th November Matt Howard: Todorov, E. & Tassa, Y. Iterative local dynamic programming IEEE Symposium on Adaptive Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning, 2009
• 23rd November Chris Towell: Siciliano, B. & Khatib, O. (ed.) Handbook of Robotics, Chapter 1. Kinematics. Springer, 2008
• 13th July Taku Komura: Urtasun et al. Topologically-Constrained Latent Variable Models, 2008
• 29th June Matt Howard: Hogan, Impedance Control: An Approach to Manipulation: Part I,II,III, Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, 1985
• 22nd June Jo-Anne: Langford, Salakhutdinov, Zhang Learning Nonlinear Dynamic Models, 2009
• 13th April Ram: Givan, Dean, Greig, Equivalence notions and model minimization in Markov decision processes, 2003
• 6 April Michael Herrmann: Peters, Schaal, Natural Actor Critic, 2008
• 23 March Hubert Shum: BarbiÄÂÂ�, Popović, Real-time Control of Physically Based Simulations using Gentle Forces, 2008
• 2 March Konrad Rawlik: Guigon, Baraduc, Desmurget, Optimality, stochasticity, and variability in motor behavior, 2008
• 23 February Adrian Haith: Chiappa, Kober, Peters, Using Bayesian Dynamical Systems for Motion Template Libraries, 2008.
• 16 February Chris Towell: Park, Hoffmann, Pastor, Schaal, Movement reproduction and obstacle avoidance with dynamic movement primitives and potential fields, 2008.
• 9 February Ioannis Havoutis: Yang, Chong, Ra, Kim and You, Self-stabilizing Bipedal Locomotion Employing Neural Oscillators, 2008.
• 26 January Matt Howard: Inamura, Toshima, Tanie and Nakamura, Embodied Symbol Emergence based on Mimesis Theory, 2004.

2008

• 1 December Control theory book club. Ioannis Havoutis
• 24 November Taku Komura: Stern, Herbrich and Graepel, Learning to solve game trees, 2007
• 17 November Control theory book club, chapter 3. Ram
• 10 November Matt Howard: Udwadia, Optimal tracking control of nonlinear dynamical systems, 2008 pdf; Itiki, Kalaba and Udwadia, Inequality Constraints in the Process of Jumping, 1996 pdf
• 3 November Control theory book club. Stefan Klanke
• 20 October Control theory book club. Konrad Rawlik. Chapter 2 sections 2.1 to 2.6.
• 13 October Djordje Mitrovic: Rantzer and Johansson, 1997: Piecewise Linear Quadratic Optimal Control
• 6 October Control theory book club. Finish chapter 1. Reference -- Eduardo Sontag: Mathematical Control Theory webpage
• 29 September Michael Herrmann: Dual Control (continued from 25th Aug.)
• 8 September Control theory book club introductory session. Reference -- Eduardo Sontag: Mathematical Control Theory webpage
• 25 August Michael Herrmann: Moreau and Sontag, Balancing at the border of instability, 2003 pdf
• 11 August Adrian Haith: Hilbert Kappen, Path integrals and symmetry-breaking for optimal control theory, 2008 pdf
• 28 July Ioannis Havoutis: Introduction to Operational Space Control 1, 2, 3
• 14 July Ram: Tomlin et al. A Game Theoretic Approach to Controller Design for Hybrid Systems, 2000 pdf; Pappas and Simic, Consistent Abstractions of Affine Control Systems, 2002 pdf
• 16 June, 11.00am Hubert Shum: Jehee Lee and Kang Hoon Lee, Precomputing Avatar Behavior from Human Motion Data, 2006 webpage.
• 26 May, 11.00am Taku Komura: da Silva et al. Simulation of Human Motion Data using Short-Horizon Model-Predictive Control, 2008 pdf
• 12 May, 11.00am Sebastian Bitzer: Billard et al. Handbook of Robotics, Chpt 59: Robot Programming by Demonstration. 2007 pdf
• 14 April, 11:00am Stefan Klanke: Demo of linear quadratic control, infinite and finite horizon. Matlab scripts
• 07 April, 10:00am Djordje Mitrovic: LQG and Piecewise-linear Optimal Control. Part 4 of Todorov's Book Chapter, 2006: Mathematical Introduction to Optimal Control Theory; Rantzer and Johansson, 1997: Piecewise Linear Quadratic Optimal Control

Suggested Topics

• Dynamical systems: Non-linear and stochastic dynamical systems. Solution of ordinary, partial and stochastic differential equations.
• Optimal Control: Optimal feedback control and state estimation.
• Manipulation: Kinematics, dynamics, contact control, redundancy.
• Learning for control: Reinforcement learning, learning kinematics/dynamics, Bayesian techniques, imitation Learning.

Suggested Papers

• Optimal Control and Estimation Lecture at Princeton by Prof. Robert Stengel
• Computational Topology: An Introduction, Edelsbrunner and Harer
• Computational Topology Lecture Notes by Yusu Wang at Ohio State University
• CHOMP: Gradient Optimization Techniques for Efficient Motion Planning
• Optimal Control: Iterative LQG, Differential Dynamic Programming 1, 2
• Optimal Control/State Estimation Duality
• Probabilistic inference for solving POMDPs
• Learning Operational Space Control
• Redundant Control
• Reinforcement Learning: General, Viscosity Solutions, Policy Gradient,
• Kinematics 1, 2
• Stochastic Differential Equations
• Locally Weighted Learning for Control 1, 2
• Imitation Learning/Programming by Demonstration 1
• Stability Analysis/Lyapunov Functions 1, 2
• Viscosity Solutions of PDEs
• Proportional Derivative (PD) Control on the Euclidean Group - Suggested by Ram
• Robust Adaptive Control
• Kalman Filtering 1,2
• Discrete Time Systems

Locomotion competition

• QWOP
• Current Best : 36.6 - Adrian