Computer Engineering Commons^™

Eliminating Mutual Views In Fusion Of Ranging And Rgb-D Data From Robot Teams Operating In Confined Areas, Damian M. Lyons, Karma Shrestha

Faculty Publications

We address the problem of fusing laser and RGB-Data from multiple robots operating in close proximity to one another. By having a team of robots working together, a large area can be scanned quickly, or a smaller area scanned in greater detail. However, a key aspect of this problem is the elimination of the spurious readings due to the robots operating in close proximity. While there is an extensive literature on the mapping and localization aspect of this problem, our problem differs from the dynamic map problem in that it involves at one kind of transient map feature, robots viewing …

On Optimal Media/Video Distribution In Closed P2p-Based Iptv Networks, Hao Cui, Xiao Su, Weijia Shang

Faculty Publications

Video distribution over the Internet has become a popular service because of technological advances in internet (e.g., higher network bandwidth) and video coding (e.g., H.264/SVC). In this and other similar media distribution applications, a server or distribution center sends a media/video to a group peers with different bandwidth resources and display capacities. In one of the approaches, the peer-to-peer approach, the server sends only one copy of the media over Internet, and each peer receives one segment of the media and exchanges his/her segment with other peers to receive the complete media. A key design issue in this approach is …

Toward A Framework For Levels Of Robot Autonomy In Human-Robot Interaction, Jenay Beer, A. D. Fisk, W. A. Rogers

Faculty Publications

Autonomy is a critical construct related to human-robot interaction (HRI) and varies widely across robot platforms. Levels of robot autonomy (LORA), ranging from teleoperation to fully autonomous systems, influence the way in which humans and robots interact with one another. Thus, there is a need to understand HRI by identifying variables that influence—and are influenced by—robot autonomy. Our overarching goal is to develop a framework for LORA in HRI. To reach this goal, our framework draws links between HRI and human-automation interaction, a field with a long history of studying and understanding human-related variables. The construct of autonomy is reviewed …

Getting It Right The First Time: Robot Mission Guarantees In The Presence Of Uncertainty, Damian M. Lyons, Ronald C. Arkin, Paramesh Nirmal, Shu Jiang, Tsung-Ming Liu, J. Deeb

Faculty Publications

Certain robot missions need to perform predictably in a physical environment that may only be poorly characterized in advance. We have previously developed an approach to establishing performance guarantees for behaviorbased controllers in a process-algebra framework. We extend that work here to include random variables, and we show how our prior results can be used to generate a Dynamic Bayesian Network for the coupled system of program and environment model. Verification is reduced to a filtering problem for this network. Finally, we present validation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the verification of a multiple waypoint robot mission using this …

Getting It Right The First Time: Robot Mission Guarantees In The Presence Of Uncertainty, Damian Lyons, Ron Arkin, Paramesh Nirmal, Shu Jiang, Tsung-Ming Liu, Julia Deeb

Faculty Publications

Abstract—Certain robot missions need to perform predictably in a physical environment that may only be poorly characterized in advance. We have previously developed an approach to establishing performance guarantees for behavior-based controllers in a process-algebra framework. We extend that work here to include random variables, and we show how our prior results can be used to generate a Dynamic Bayesian Network for the coupled system of program and environment model. Verification is reduced to a filtering problem for this network. Finally, we present validation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the verification of a multiple waypoint robot mission using this …

Advances In The Redcat Software Package, Chris Schmidt, Stephanie J. Irausquin, Homayoun Valafar

Faculty Publications

Background

Residual Dipolar Couplings (RDCs) have emerged in the past two decades as an informative source of experimental restraints for the study of structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules and complexes. The REDCAT software package was previously introduced for the analysis of molecular structures using RDC data. Here we report additional features that have been included in this software package in order to expand the scope of its analyses. We first discuss the features that enhance REDCATs user-friendly nature, such as the integration of a number of analyses into one single operation and enabling convenient examination of a structural ensemble …

Performance Guarantees For C-Wmd Robot Missions, Shu Jiang, Ronald C. Arkin, Damian M. Lyons, Tsung-Ming Liu, Dagon Harrington

Faculty Publications

Robotics has been considered as one of the five key technology areas for defense against attacks with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, due to the mass impact nature of WMD, failures of counter-WMD (C-WMD) missions can have catastrophic consequences.To ensure robot's success in carrying out C-WMD missions, we have developed a novel verification framework in providing performance guarantees for behavior-based and probabilistic robot algorithms in complex real-world environments. This paper describes the system architecture and discusses how the verification framework can be used to provide pre-mission performance guarantees for robots in executing C-WMD missions.

Protein Structure Validation And Identification From Unassigned Residual Dipolar Coupling Data Using 2d-Pdpa, Arjang Fahim, Rishi Mukhopadhyay, Ryan Yandle, James H. Prestegard, Homayoun Valafar

Faculty Publications

More than 90% of protein structures submitted to the PDB each year are homologous to some previously characterized protein structure. The extensive resources that are required for structural characterization of proteins can be justified for the 10% of the novel structures, but not for the remaining 90%. This report presents the 2D-PDPA method, which utilizes unassigned residual dipolar coupling in order to address the economics of structure determination of routine proteins by reducing the data acquisition and processing time. 2D-PDPA has been demonstrated to successfully identify the correct structure of an array of proteins that range from 46 to 445 …

A Forward-Secure Certificate-Based Signature Scheme, Jiguo Li, Huiyun Teng, Xinyu Huang, Yichen Zhang, Jianying Zhou

Faculty Publications

Cryptographic computations are often carried out on insecure devices for which the threat of key exposure raises a serious concern. In an effort to address the key exposure problem, the notion of forward security was first presented by Günther in 1990. In a forward-secure scheme, secret keys are updated at regular periods of time; exposure of the secret key corresponding to a given time period does not enable an adversary to ‘break’ the scheme for any prior time period. In this paper, we first introduce forward security into certificate-based cryptography and define the security model of forward-secure certificate-based signatures (CBSs). …

Why A 15 Minute Biological Detection System?, Doug Lewis

Faculty Publications

The biological defense community needs to take a hard look at the requirements and assumptions we use to develop our biological sensors. Today the point sensors currently deployed or in development can offer at best “near real time” detection. This translates into approximately 10-20 minutes from the time an agent passes over the device until an alarm is issued. Why are we working to develop detection hardware which in reality contributes little to no advantage to an operational environment? Should the DOD resist fielding (in the near term) “near real time” detection systems, and instead field slower (but much more …

Verifying Performance For Autonomous Robot Missions With Uncertainty, Damian M. Lyons, Ronald Arkin, Tsung-Ming Liu, Shu Jiang, Paramesh Nirmal

Faculty Publications

Establishing performance guarantees for robot missions is especially important for C-WMD applications. Software verification techniques, such as model checking (Clark 1999, Jhala & Majumdar 2009), can be applied to robotic applications but characteristics of this application area, including addition of a robot environment model and handling continuous spatial location well, exacerbate state explosion, a key weakness of these methods. We have proposed an approach to verifying robot missions that shifts the focus from state-based analysis onto the solution of a set of flow equations (Lyons et al. 2012). The key novelty introduced in this paper is a probabilistic spatial representation …

Path Loss In An Urban Peer-To-Peer Channel For Six Public-Safety Frequency Bands, David W. Matolak, Qian Zhang, Qiong Wu

Faculty Publications

We provide path loss data and models for a peer-to-peer wireless channel for an urban environment in six public safety bands, for simultaneous transmission to five spatially separated receiving sites. Results are from measurements in Denver, Colorado. The six frequencies at which we measured are (in MHz) 430, 750, 905, 1834, 2400, and 4860. Both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight conditions were covered, and we quantify path loss exponents and linear-fit standard deviations as functions of frequency and location. Line-of-sight results agree with prior work, but non-line-of-sight exponents, from 3.6-7.3, are generally larger than in most other references.

Performance Verification For Behavior-Based Robot Missions, Damian M. Lyons, Ronald Arkin, Shu Jiang, Tsung-Ming Liu, Paramesh Nirmal, J. Deeb

Faculty Publications

Certain robot missions need to perform predictably in a physical en-vironment that may only be poorly characterized in advance. This requirement raises many issues for existing approaches to software verification. An approach based on behavior-based controllers in a process-algebra framework is proposed by Lyons et al [15] to side-step state combinatorics. In this paper we show that this approach can be used to generate a Dynamic Bayesian Network for the problem, and that verification is reduced to a filtering problem for this network. We present validation results for the verification of a multiple waypoint robot mission using this approach.

Fusion Of Ranging Data From Robot Teams Operating In Confined Areas, Damian M. Lyons, Karma Shrestha, Tsung-Ming Liu

Faculty Publications

We address the problem of fusing laser ranging data from multiple mobile robots that are surveying an area as part of a robot search and rescue or area surveillance mission. We are specifically interested in the case where members of the robot team are working in close proximity to each other. The advantage of this teamwork is that it greatly speeds up the surveying process; the area can be quickly covered even when the robots use a random motion exploration approach. However, the disadvantage of the close proximity is that it is possible, and even likely, that the laser ranging …

A Cognitive Approach To Vision For A Mobile Robot, Paul Benjamin, Christopher Funk, Damian M. Lyons

Faculty Publications

We describe a cognitive vision system for a mobile robot. This system works in a manner similar to the human vision system, using saccadic, vergence and pursuit movements to extract information from visual input. At each fixation, the system builds a 3D model of a small region, combining information about distance, shape, texture and motion. These 3D models are embedded within an overall 3D model of the robot's environment. This approach turns the computer vision problem into a search problem, with the goal of constructing a physically realistic model of the entire environment. At each step, the vision system selects …

A Software Tool For The Design Of Critical Robot Missions With Performance Guarantees, Damian M. Lyons, Ronald C. Arkin, Paramesh Nirmal, Shu Jiang, Tsung-Ming Liu

Faculty Publications

Deploying a robot as part of a counter-weapons of mass destruction mission demands that the robotic software operates with high assurance. A unique feature of robotic software development is the need to perform predictably in a physical environment that may only be poorly characterized in advance. In this paper, we present an approach to building high assurance software for robot missions carried out in uncertain environments. The software development framework and the verification algorithm, VIPARS, are described in detail. Results are presented for missions including motion and sensing uncertainty, interaction with obstacles, and the use of sensors to guide behavior.

Visual Homing With A Pan-Tilt Based Stereo Camera, Paramesh Nirmal, Damian M. Lyons

Faculty Publications

Visual homing is a navigation method based on comparing a stored image of the goal location and the current image (current view) to determine how to navigate to the goal location. It is theorized that insects, such as ants and bees, employ visual homing methods to return to their nest [1]. Visual homing has been applied to autonomous robot platforms using two main approaches: holistic and feature-based. Both methods aim at determining distance and direction to the goal location. Navigational algorithms using Scale Invariant Feature Transforms (SIFT) have gained great popularity in the recent years due to the robustness of …

Querie: Collaborative Database Exploration, Magdalini Eirinaki, S. Abraham, N. Polyzotis, N. Shaikh

Faculty Publications

Interactive database exploration is a key task in information mining. However, users who lack SQL expertise or familiarity with the database schema face great difficulties in performing this task. To aid these users, we developed the QueRIE system for personalized query recommendations. QueRIE continuously monitors the user’s querying behavior and finds matching patterns in the system’s query log, in an attempt to identify previous users with similar information needs. Subsequently, QueRIE uses these “similar” users and their queries to recommend queries that the current user may find interesting. In this work we describe an instantiation of the QueRIE framework, where …

A Smartphone Design Approach To User Communication Interface For Administering Storage System Network, Weider Yu, Xiao Su, Jason Hansen

Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the feasibility and potential of using a mobile smartphone as a user administration control for storage system network. It includes the design and implementation of a mobile smartphone software system that can be used to perform system administration activities on the storage system without the need of using a laptop or desktop system. In the paper the design of some effective metaphors to present the storage system on the limited display area of a mobile smartphone device and the set of system features chosen for implementation are presented. Current storage system administration is limited to using storage …

De-Embedding In High Speed Design, Don Degroot, David Dunham

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Designing Autonomous Robot Missions With Performance Guarantees, Damian M. Lyons, Ronald Arkin, Prem Nirmal, Shu Jiang

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the need and methods required to construct an integrated software verification and mission specification system for use in robotic missions intended for counter-weapons of mass destruction (c-WMD) operations, as part of a 3-year effort for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The overall system architecture is described. The principal tool for verification is a process algebra, PARS, based on port automata theory. PARS is introduced, emphasizing its ability to represent probabilistic programs and uncertain and dynamic environments, followed by the analysis of mission properties for an example robotic mission.

Wireless Networks-On-Chips: Architecture, Wireless Channel, And Devices, David W. Matolak, Avinash Kodi, Savas Kaya, Dominic Ditomaso, Soumyasanta Laha, William Rayess

Faculty Publications

Wireless networks-on-chips (WINoCs) hold substantial promise for enhancing multicore integrated circuit performance, by augmenting conventional wired interconnects. As the number of cores per IC grows, intercore communication requirements will also grow, and WINoCs can be used to both save power and reduce latency. In this article, we briefly describe some of the key challenges with WINoC implementation, and also describe our example design, iWISE, which is a scalable wireless interconnect design. We show that the integration of wireless interconnects with wired interconnects in NoCs can reduce overall network power by 34 percent while achieving a speedup of 2.54 on real …

Feature-Based Opinion Mining And Ranking, Magdalini Eirinaki, S. Pisal, J. Singh

Faculty Publications

The proliferation of blogs and social networks presents a new set of challenges and opportunities in the way information is searched and retrieved. Even though facts still play a very important role when information is sought on a topic, opinions have become increasingly important as well. Opinions expressed in blogs and social networks are playing an important role influencing everything from the products people buy to the presidential candidate they support. Thus, there is a need for a new type of search engine which will not only retrieve facts, but will also enable the retrieval of opinions. Such a search …

Multiple Structure Alignment With Mstali, Paul Shealy, Homayoun Valafar

Faculty Publications

Background

Multiple structure alignments have received increasing attention in recent years as an alternative to multiple sequence alignments. Although multiple structure alignment algorithms can potentially be applied to a number of problems, they have primarily been used for protein core identification. A method that is capable of solving a variety of problems using structure comparison is still absent. Here we introduce a program msTALI for aligning multiple protein structures. Our algorithm uses several informative features to guide its alignments: torsion angles, backbone C^α atom positions, secondary structure, residue type, surface accessibility, and properties of nearby atoms. The algorithm allows …

Getting It Right The First Time: Predicted Performance Guarantees From The Analysis Of Emergent Behavior In Autonomous And Semi-Autonomous Systems, Ronald C. Arkin, Damian M. Lyons, Shu Jiang, Prem Nirmal, Munzir Zafar

Faculty Publications

A crucially important aspect for mission-critical robotic operations is ensuring as best as possible that an autonomous system be able to complete its task. In a project for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) we are developing methods to provide such guidance, specifically for counter-Weapons of Mass Destruction (C-WMD) missions. In this paper, we describe the scenarios under consideration, the performance measures and metrics being developed, and an outline of the mechanisms for providing performance guarantees.

Navigation Of Uncertain Terrain By Fusion Of Information From Real And Synthetic Imagery, Damian M. Lyons, Prem Nirmal, D. Paul Benjamin

Faculty Publications

We consider the scenario where an autonomous platform that is searching or traversing a building may observe unstable masonry or may need to travel over unstable rubble. A purely behaviour-based system may handle these challenges but produce behaviour that works against long-terms goals such as reaching a victim as quickly as possible. We extend our work on ADAPT, a cognitive robotics architecture that incorporates 3D simulation and image fusion, to allow the robot to predict the behaviour of physical phenomena, such as falling masonry, and take actions consonant with long-term goals.

We experimentally evaluate a cognitive only and reactive only …

Using A Virtual World For Robot Planning, D. Paul Benjamin, John V. Monaco, Yixia Lin, Christopher Funk, Damian M. Lyons

Faculty Publications

We are building a robot cognitive architecture that constructs a real-time virtual copy of itself and its environment, including people, and uses the model to process perceptual information and to plan its movements. This paper describes the structure of this architecture. The software components of this architecture include PhysX for the virtual world, OpenCV and the Point Cloud Library for visual processing, and the Soar cognitive architecture that controls the perceptual processing and task planning. The RS (Robot Schemas) language is implemented in Soar, providing the ability to reason about concurrency and time. This Soar/RS component controls visual processing, deciding …

Power Spectral Densities Of Baseband Signals In Epc Class-1 Gen-2 Uhf Rfid Systems, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza

Faculty Publications

The power spectral densities (PSD) of baseband signals in EPC Class-1 Gen-2 UHF RFID systems are shown. PSD are obtained using Matlab as the Fourier transform (via the FFT algorithm) of the autocorrelation function of random pulse sequences. The PSD of PIE, FM0 and Miller subcarrier for M=2, 4 and 8 are shown for both unipolar (for 100% ASK or OOK modulation) and polar (PSK modulation) waveforms.

An Approach To Stereo-Point Cloud Registration Using Image Homographies, Damian M. Lyons, Stephen D. Fox

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Characterizing Performance Guarantees For Real-Time Multiagent Systems Operating In Noisy And Uncertain Environments, Damian M. Lyons, Ronald Arkin, Stephen Fox, Shu Jiang, Prem Nirmal, Munzir Zafar

Faculty Publications

Autonomous robots offer the potential to conduct Counter-Weapons of Mass Destruction (C-WMD) missions in an efficient and robust manner. However, to leverage this potential, a mission designer needs to be able to determine how well a robot system will operate in the noisy and uncertain environments that a C-WMD mission may require. We are developing a software framework for verification of performance guarantees for C-WMD missions based on the MissionLab software system and a novel process algebra approach to representing robot programs and operating environments.

In this paper, we report on our initial research for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency …