Engineering Commons^™

Automated Image Interpretation For Science Autonomy In Robotic Planetary Exploration, Raymond Francis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Advances in the capabilities of robotic planetary exploration missions have increased the wealth of scientific data they produce, presenting challenges for mission science and operations imposed by the limits of interplanetary radio communications. These data budget pressures can be relieved by increased robotic autonomy, both for onboard operations tasks and for decision- making in response to science data.

This thesis presents new techniques in automated image interpretation for natural scenes of relevance to planetary science and exploration, and elaborates autonomy scenarios under which they could be used to extend the reach and performance of exploration missions on planetary surfaces.

Two …

3d Robotic Sensing Of People: Human Perception, Representation And Activity Recognition, Hao Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

The robots are coming. Their presence will eventually bridge the digital-physical divide and dramatically impact human life by taking over tasks where our current society has shortcomings (e.g., search and rescue, elderly care, and child education). Human-centered robotics (HCR) is a vision to address how robots can coexist with humans and help people live safer, simpler and more independent lives.

As humans, we have a remarkable ability to perceive the world around us, perceive people, and interpret their behaviors. Endowing robots with these critical capabilities in highly dynamic human social environments is a significant but very challenging problem in practical …

Complementary Layered Learning, Sean Mondesire

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Layered learning is a machine learning paradigm used to develop autonomous robotic-based agents by decomposing a complex task into simpler subtasks and learns each sequentially. Although the paradigm continues to have success in multiple domains, performance can be unexpectedly unsatisfactory. Using Boolean-logic problems and autonomous agent navigation, we show poor performance is due to the learner forgetting how to perform earlier learned subtasks too quickly (favoring plasticity) or having difficulty learning new things (favoring stability). We demonstrate that this imbalance can hinder learning so that task performance is no better than that of a suboptimal learning technique, monolithic learning, which …

Sketchart: A Pen-Based Tool For Chart Generation And Interaction., Andres Vargas Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It has been shown that representing data with the right visualization increases the understanding of qualitative and quantitative information encoded in documents. However, current tools for generating such visualizations involve the use of traditional WIMP techniques, which perhaps makes free interaction and direct manipulation of the content harder. In this thesis, we present a pen-based prototype for data visualization using 10 different types of bar based charts. The prototype lets users sketch a chart and interact with the information once the drawing is identified. The prototype's user interface consists of an area to sketch and touch based elements that will …

An Urgent Precaution System To Detect Students At Risk Of Substance Abuse Through Classification Algorithms, Faruk Bulut, İhsan Ömür Bucak

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In recent years, the use of addictive drugs and substances has turned out to be a challenging social problem worldwide. The illicit use of these types of drugs and substances appears to be increasing among elementary and high school students. After becoming addicted to drugs, life becomes unbearable and gets even worse for their users. Scientific studies show that it becomes extremely difficult for an individual to break this habit after being a user. Hence, preventing teenagers from addiction becomes an important issue. This study focuses on an urgent precaution system that helps families and educators prevent teenagers from developing …