Development of a Basic Educational Kit for Robotic System with Deep Neural Networks

In many robotics studies, deep neural networks (DNNs) are being actively studied due to their good performance. However, existing robotic techniques and DNNs have not been systematically integrated, and packages for beginners are yet to be developed. In this study, we proposed a basic educational kit for robotic system development with DNNs. Our goal was to educate beginners in both robotics and machine learning, especially the use of DNNs. Initially, we required the kit to (1) be easy to understand, (2) employ experience-based learning, and (3) be applicable in many areas. To clarify the learning objectives and important parts of the basic educational kit, we analyzed the research and development (R&D) of DNNs and divided the process into three steps of data collection (DC), machine learning (ML), and task execution (TE). These steps were configured under a hierarchical system flow with the ability to be executed individually at the development stage. To evaluate the practicality of the proposed system flow, we implemented it for a physical robotic grasping system using robotics middleware. We also demonstrated that the proposed system can be effectively applied to other hardware, sensor inputs, and robot tasks.

Materializing Architecture for Processing Multimodal Signals for a Humanoid Robot Control System

In recent years, many systems have been developed to embed deep learning in robots. Some use multimodal information to achieve higher accuracy. In this paper, we highlight three aspects of such systems: cost, robustness, and system optimization. First, because the optimization of large architectures using real environments is computationally expensive, developing such architectures is difficult. Second, in a real-world environment, noise, such as changes in lighting, is often contained in the input. Thus, the architecture should be robust against noise. Finally, it can be difficult to coordinate a system composed of individually optimized modules; thus, the system is better optimized as one architecture. To address these aspects, a simple and highly robust architecture, namely memorizing and associating converted multimodal signal architecture (MACMSA), is proposed in this study. Verification experiments are conducted, and the potential of the proposed architecture is discussed. The experimental results show that MACMSA diminishes the effects of noise and obtains substantially higher robustness than a simple autoencoder. MACMSA takes us one step closer to building robots that can truly interact with humans.

Modeling of dynamical systems through deep learning

This review presents a modern perspective on dynamical systems in the context of current goals and open challenges. In particular, our review focuses on the key challenges of discovering dynamics from data and finding data-driven representations that make nonlinear systems amenable to linear analysis. We explore various challenges in modern dynamical systems, along with emerging techniques in data science and machine learning to tackle them. The two chief challenges are (1) nonlinear dynamics and (2) unknown or partially known dynamics. Machine learning is providing new and powerful techniques for both challenges. Dimensionality reduction methods are used for projecting dynamical methods in reduced form, and these methods perform computational efficiency on real-world data. Data-driven models drive to discover the governing equations and give laws of physics. The identification of dynamical systems through deep learning techniques succeeds in inferring physical systems. Machine learning provides advanced new and powerful algorithms for nonlinear dynamics. Advanced deep learning methods like autoencoders, recurrent neural networks, convolutional neural networks, and reinforcement learning are used in modeling of dynamical systems.