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We study the problem of learning latent variables in Gaussian graphical models. Existing methods for this problem assume that the precision matrix of the observed variables is the superposition of a sparse and a low-rank component. In this…

Task Parametrized Gaussian Mixture Models (TP-GMM) are a sample-efficient method for learning object-centric robot manipulation tasks. However, there are several open challenges to applying TP-GMMs in the wild. In this work, we tackle three…

Robotic systems must be able to quickly and robustly make decisions when operating in uncertain and dynamic environments. While Reinforcement Learning (RL) can be used to compute optimal policies with little prior knowledge about the…

Motion systems are often subject to disturbances such as cogging, commutation errors, and imbalances, that vary with velocity and appear periodic in time for constant operating velocities. The aim of this paper is to develop a repetitive…

The combination of inducing point methods with stochastic variational inference has enabled approximate Gaussian Process (GP) inference on large datasets. Unfortunately, the resulting predictive distributions often exhibit substantially…

We propose a new method for simplification of Gaussian process (GP) models by projecting the information contained in the full encompassing model and selecting a reduced number of variables based on their predictive relevance. Our results…

Cooperative online scalar field mapping is an important task for multi-robot systems. Gaussian process regression is widely used to construct a map that represents spatial information with confidence intervals. However, it is difficult to…

The objective of this study is to enable fast and safe manipulation tasks in home environments. Specifically, we aim to develop a system that can recognize its surroundings and identify target objects while in motion, enabling it to plan…

We present the Goal Uncertain Stochastic Shortest Path (GUSSP) problem -- a general framework to model path planning and decision making in stochastic environments with goal uncertainty. The framework extends the stochastic shortest path…

Many real-world robot learning problems, such as pick-and-place or arriving at a destination, can be seen as a problem of reaching a goal state as soon as possible. These problems, when formulated as episodic reinforcement learning tasks,…

Examples with bound information on the regression function and density abound in many real applications. We propose a novel approach for estimating such functions by incorporating the prior knowledge on the bounds. Specially, a Gaussian…

Gaussian Processes (GP) have become popular machine-learning methods for kernel-based learning on datasets with complicated covariance structures. In this paper, we present a novel extension to the GP framework using a contaminated normal…

We develop an automated variational method for inference in models with Gaussian process (GP) priors and general likelihoods. The method supports multiple outputs and multiple latent functions and does not require detailed knowledge of the…

In this paper, we give a double twist to the problem of planning under uncertainty. State-of-the-art planners seek to minimize the localization uncertainty by only considering the geometric structure of the scene. In this paper, we argue…

We present a novel formulation for motion planning under uncertainties based on variational inference where the optimal motion plan is modeled as a posterior distribution. We propose a Gaussian variational inference-based framework, termed…

Gaussian processes (GP) for machine learning have been studied systematically over the past two decades and they are by now widely used in a number of diverse applications. However, GP kernel design and the associated hyper-parameter…

We propose a new variational inference algorithm for learning in Gaussian Process State-Space Models (GPSSMs). Our algorithm enables learning of unstable and partially observable systems, where previous algorithms fail. Our main algorithmic…

We propose a method for learning constraints represented as Gaussian processes (GPs) from locally-optimal demonstrations. Our approach uses the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) optimality conditions to determine where on the demonstrations the…

Safety is a critical issue in learning-based robotic and autonomous systems as learned information about their environments is often unreliable and inaccurate. In this paper, we propose a risk-aware motion control tool that is robust…

This tutorial provides a systematic introduction to Gaussian process learning-based model predictive control (GP-MPC), an advanced approach integrating Gaussian process (GP) with model predictive control (MPC) for enhanced control in…