Related papers: Guiding drones by information gain
In this proof-of-concept study, we conduct multivariate timeseries forecasting for the concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), and (fine) particulate matter (PM10 & PM2.5) with meteorological covariates between two locations…
The current Air Traffic Management (ATM) system worldwide has reached its limits in terms of predictability, efficiency and cost effectiveness. Different initiatives worldwide propose trajectory-oriented transformations that require high…
Learning to control robots without requiring engineered models has been a long-term goal, promising diverse and novel applications. Yet, reinforcement learning has only achieved limited impact on real-time robot control due to its high…
The increasing number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in urban environments requires a strategy to minimize their environmental impact, both in terms of energy efficiency and noise reduction. In order to reduce these concerns, novel…
We present a formal mathematical multi-agent modeling framework for autonomously combating a wildland fire with unmanned aerial vehicles. The problem is formulated as a collaboration between a drone and a helicopter equipped with a tanker.…
In our previous work, we designed a systematic policy to prioritize sampling locations to lead significant accuracy improvement in spatial interpolation by using the prediction uncertainty of Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) as "attraction…
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are now beginning to be deployed for enhancing the network performance and coverage in wireless communication. However, due to the limitation of their on-board power and flight time, it is challenging to…
Swarms of drones offer an increased sensing aperture, and having them mimic behaviors of natural swarms enhances sampling by adapting the aperture to local conditions. We demonstrate that such an approach makes detecting and tracking…
As global warming intensifies, increased attention is being paid to monitoring fugitive methane emissions and detecting gas plumes from landfills. We have divided methane emission monitoring into three subtasks: methane concentration…
The safe operation of drone swarms beyond visual line of sight requires multiple safeguards to mitigate the risk of collision between drones flying in close-proximity scenarios. Cooperative navigation and flight coordination strategies that…
Autonomous drones can operate in remote and unstructured environments, enabling various real-world applications. However, the lack of effective vision-based algorithms has been a stumbling block to achieving this goal. Existing systems…
This paper overviews two interdependent issues important for mining remote sensing data (e.g. images) obtained from atmospheric monitoring missions. The first issue relates the building new public datasets and benchmarks, which are hot…
Communication networks able to withstand hostile environments are critically important for disaster relief operations. In this paper, we consider a challenging scenario where drones have been compromised in the supply chain, during their…
Active target sensing is the task of discovering and classifying an unknown number of targets in an environment and is critical in search-and-rescue missions. This paper develops a deep reinforcement learning approach to plan informative…
We introduce Air Learning, an open-source simulator, and a gym environment for deep reinforcement learning research on resource-constrained aerial robots. Equipped with domain randomization, Air Learning exposes a UAV agent to a diverse set…
Beyond the immediate biophysical benefits, urban trees play a foundational role in environmental sustainability and disaster mitigation. Precise mapping of urban trees is essential for environmental monitoring, post-disaster assessment, and…
Drones in many applications need the ability to fly fully or partially autonomously to accomplish their mission. To allow these fully/partially autonomous flights, first, the drone needs to be able to locate itself constantly. Then the…
In this work, we present a deep reinforcement learning based method to solve the problem of robotic grasping using visio-motor feedback. The use of a deep learning based approach reduces the complexity caused by the use of hand-designed…
Autonomous indoor navigation of UAVs presents numerous challenges, primarily due to the limited precision of GPS in enclosed environments. Additionally, UAVs' limited capacity to carry heavy or power-intensive sensors, such as overheight…
Intrinsically motivated goal exploration algorithms enable machines to discover repertoires of policies that produce a diversity of effects in complex environments. These exploration algorithms have been shown to allow real world robots to…