Publication List with Images
2025 |
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Dave, Vedant; Rueckert, Elmar Skill Disentanglement in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Proceedings Article In: In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2025. BibTeX | Tags: Deep Learning, neural network, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Dave2025bb, | |
2024 |
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Lygerakis, Fotios; Dave, Vedant; Rueckert, Elmar M2CURL: Sample-Efficient Multimodal Reinforcement Learning via Self-Supervised Representation Learning for Robotic Manipulation Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Contrastive Learning, Manipulation, Multimodal Reinforcement Learning, Multimodal Representation Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Robot Learning @inproceedings{Lygerakis2024, | |
Feith, Nikolaus; Rueckert, Elmar Integrating Human Expertise in Continuous Spaces: A Novel Interactive Bayesian Optimization Framework with Preference Expected Improvement Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Interactive Learning, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Feith2024A, | |
Feith, Nikolaus; Rueckert, Elmar Advancing Interactive Robot Learning: A User Interface Leveraging Mixed Reality and Dual Quaternions Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Human-Robot Interaction, Mixted Reality, Robot Learning @inproceedings{Feith2024B, | |
Neubauer, Melanie; Rueckert, Elmar Semi-Autonomous Fast Object Segmentation and Tracking Tool for Industrial Applications Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. Links | BibTeX | Tags: computer vision, Deep Learning, Recycling @inproceedings{Neubauer2024, | |
Dave*, Vedant; Lygerakis*, Fotios; Rueckert, Elmar Multimodal Visual-Tactile Representation Learning through Self-Supervised Contrastive Pre-Training Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024)., 2024, (* equal contribution). Links | BibTeX | Tags: Contrastive Learning, Representation Learning, Self-supervised Learning, Tactile Sensing @inproceedings{Dave2024b, | |
Nwankwo, Linus; Rueckert, Elmar The Conversation is the Command: Interacting with Real-World Autonomous Robots Through Natural Language Proceedings Article In: HRI '24: Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction., pp. 808–812, ACM/IEEE Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2024, ISBN: 9798400703232, (Published as late breaking results. Supplementary video: https://cloud.cps.unileoben.ac.at/index.php/s/fRE9XMosWDtJ339 ). Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Autonomous Navigation, Large Language Models @inproceedings{Nwankwo2024, In recent years, autonomous agents have surged in real-world environments such as our homes, offices, and public spaces. However, natural human-robot interaction remains a key challenge. In this paper, we introduce an approach that synergistically exploits the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) and multimodal vision-language models (VLMs) to enable humans to interact naturally with autonomous robots through conversational dialogue. We leveraged the LLMs to decode the high-level natural language instructions from humans and abstract them into precise robot actionable commands or queries. Further, we utilised the VLMs to provide a visual and semantic understanding of the robot's task environment. Our results with 99.13% command recognition accuracy and 97.96% commands execution success show that our approach can enhance human-robot interaction in real-world applications. The video demonstrations of this paper can be found at https://osf.io/wzyf6 and the code is available at our GitHub repository. | |
2023 |
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Lygerakis, Fotios; Rueckert, Elmar CR-VAE: Contrastive Regularization on Variational Autoencoders for Preventing Posterior Collapse Proceedings Article In: Asian Conference of Artificial Intelligence Technology (ACAIT)., IEEE, 2023. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Representation Learning, Self-supervised Learning @inproceedings{Lygerakis2023, | |
Yadav, Harsh; Xue, Honghu; Rudall, Yan; Bakr, Mohamed; Hein, Benedikt; Rueckert, Elmar; Nguyen, Ngoc Thinh Deep Reinforcement Learning for Mapless Navigation of Autonomous Mobile Robot Proceedings Article In: International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing (ICSTCC), 2023, (October 11-13, 2023, Timisoara, Romania.). Links | BibTeX | Tags: Autonomous Navigation, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Yadav2023b, | |
Nwankwo, Linus; Rueckert, Elmar Understanding why SLAM algorithms fail in modern indoor environments Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region (RAAD). , pp. 186 – 194, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland., 2023. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: mobile navigation, robotics, SLAM @inproceedings{Nwankwo2023, Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms are essential for the autonomous navigation of mobile robots. With the increasing demand for autonomous systems, it is crucial to evaluate and compare the performance of these algorithms in real-world environments. In this paper, we provide an evaluation strategy and real-world datasets to test and evaluate SLAM algorithms in complex and challenging indoor environments. Further, we analysed state-of-the-art (SOTA) SLAM algorithms based on various metrics such as absolute trajectory error, scale drift, and map accuracy and consistency. Our results demonstrate that SOTA SLAM algorithms often fail in challenging environments, with dynamic objects, transparent and reflecting surfaces. We also found that successful loop closures had a significant impact on the algorithm’s performance. These findings highlight the need for further research to improve the robustness of the algorithms in real-world scenarios. | |
Keshavarz, Sahar; Vita, Petr; Rueckert, Elmar; Ortner, Ronald; Thonhauser, Gerhard A Reinforcement Learning Approach for Real-Time Autonomous Decision-Making in Well Construction Proceedings Article In: Society of Petroleum Engineers – SPE Symposium: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Shape the Future of the Energy Industry, AIS 2023, Society of Petroleum Engineers., 2023, ISBN: 9781613999882. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Reinforcement Learning, Well Construction @inproceedings{Keshavarz2023, | |
2022 |
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Xue, Honghu; Song, Rui; Petzold, Julian; Hein, Benedikt; Hamann, Heiko; Rueckert, Elmar End-To-End Deep Reinforcement Learning for First-Person Pedestrian Visual Navigation in Urban Environments Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2022), 2022. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Autonomous Navigation, Deep Learning, mobile navigation @inproceedings{Xue2022b, We solve a visual navigation problem in an urban setting via deep reinforcement learning in an end-to-end manner. A major challenge of a first-person visual navigation problem lies in severe partial observability and sparse positive experiences of reaching the goal. To address partial observability, we propose a novel 3D-temporal convolutional network to encode sequential historical visual observations, its effectiveness is verified by comparing to a commonly-used frame-stacking approach. For sparse positive samples, we propose an improved automatic curriculum learning algorithm NavACL+, which proposes meaningful curricula starting from easy tasks and gradually generalizes to challenging ones. NavACL+ is shown to facilitate the learning process, greatly improve the task success rate on difficult tasks by at least 40% and offer enhanced generalization to different initial poses compared to training from a fixed initial pose and the original NavACL algorithm. | |
Dave, Vedant; Rueckert, Elmar Predicting full-arm grasping motions from anticipated tactile responses Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2022), 2022. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Grasping, Manipulation, Probabilistic Movement Primitives, Tactile Sensing @inproceedings{Dave2022, Tactile sensing provides significant information about the state of the environment for performing manipulation tasks. Depending on the physical properties of the object, manipulation tasks can exhibit large variation in their movements. For a grasping task, the movement of the arm and of the end effector varies depending on different points of contact on the object, especially if the object is non-homogeneous in hardness and/or has an uneven geometry. In this paper, we propose Tactile Probabilistic Movement Primitives (TacProMPs), to learn a highly non-linear relationship between the desired tactile responses and the full-arm movement. We solely condition on the tactile responses to infer the complex manipulation skills. We formulate a joint trajectory of full-arm joints with tactile data, leverage the model to condition on the desired tactile response from the non-homogeneous object and infer the full-arm (7-dof panda arm and 19-dof gripper hand) motion. We use a Gaussian Mixture Model of primitives to address the multimodality in demonstrations. We also show that the measurement noise adjustment must be taken into account due to multiple systems working in collaboration. We validate and show the robustness of the approach through two experiments. First, we consider an object with non-uniform hardness. Grasping from different locations require different motion, and results into different tactile responses. Second, we have an object with homogeneous hardness, but we grasp it with widely varying grasping configurations. Our result shows that TacProMPs can successfully model complex multimodal skills and generalise to new situations. | |
Leonel, Rozo*; Vedant, Dave* Orientation Probabilistic Movement Primitives on Riemannian Manifolds Proceedings Article In: Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), pp. 11, 2022, (* equal contribution). Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Manipulation, Probabilistic Movement Primitives, Riemannian Manifolds @inproceedings{Leonel2022, Learning complex robot motions necessarily demands to have models that are able to encode and retrieve full-pose trajectories when tasks are defined in operational spaces. Probabilistic movement primitives (ProMPs) stand out as a principled approach that models trajectory distributions learned from demonstrations. ProMPs allow for trajectory modulation and blending to achieve better generalization to novel situations. However, when ProMPs are employed in operational space, their original formulation does not directly apply to full-pose movements including rotational trajectories described by quaternions. This paper proposes a Riemannian formulation of ProMPs that enables encoding and retrieving of quaternion trajectories. Our method builds on Riemannian manifold theory, and exploits multilinear geodesic regression for estimating the ProMPs parameters. This novel approach makes ProMPs a suitable model for learning complex full-pose robot motion patterns. Riemannian ProMPs are tested on toy examples to illustrate their workflow, and on real learning-from-demonstration experiments. | |
2021 |
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Denz, R.; Demirci, R.; Cansev, E.; Bliek, A.; Beckerle, P.; Rueckert, E.; Rottmann, N. A high-accuracy, low-budget Sensor Glove for Trajectory Model Learning Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Advanced Robotics , pp. 7, 2021. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Grasping, human motor control, Manipulation, smart sensors @inproceedings{Denz2021, | |
Rottmann, N.; Denz, R.; Bruder, R.; Rueckert, E. Probabilistic Approach for Complete Coverage Path Planning with low-cost Systems Proceedings Article In: European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2021), 2021. Links | BibTeX | Tags: mobile navigation, Probabilistic Inference @inproceedings{Rottmann2021, | |
2020 |
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Akbulut, M Tuluhan; Oztop, Erhan; Seker, M Yunus; Xue, Honghu; Tekden, Ahmet E; Ugur, Emre ACNMP: Skill Transfer and Task Extrapolation through Learning from Demonstration and Reinforcement Learning via Representation Sharing Proceedings Article In: 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Deep Learning, movement primitives, Transfer Learning @inproceedings{nokey, To equip robots with dexterous skills, an effective approach is to first transfer the desired skill via Learning from Demonstration (LfD), then let the robot improve it by self-exploration via Reinforcement Learning (RL). In this paper, we propose a novel LfD+RL framework, namely Adaptive Conditional Neural Movement Primitives (ACNMP), that allows efficient policy improvement in novel environments and effective skill transfer between different agents. This is achieved through exploiting the latent representation learned by the underlying Conditional Neural Process (CNP) model, and simultaneous training of the model with supervised learning (SL) for acquiring the demonstrated trajectories and via RL for new trajectory discovery. Through simulation experiments, we show that (i) ACNMP enables the system to extrapolate to situations where pure LfD fails; (ii) Simultaneous training of the system through SL and RL preserves the shape of demonstrations while adapting to novel situations due to the shared representations used by both learners; (iii) ACNMP enables order-of-magnitude sample-efficient RL in extrapolation of reaching tasks compared to the existing approaches; (iv) ACNMPs can be used to implement skill transfer between robots having different morphology, with competitive learning speeds and importantly with less number of assumptions compared to the state-of-the-art approaches. Finally, we show the real-world suitability of ACNMPs through real robot experiments that involve obstacle avoidance, pick and place and pouring actions. | |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Exploiting Chlorophyll Fluorescense for Building Robust low-Cost Mowing Area Detectors Proceedings Article In: IEEE SENSORS , pp. 1–4, 2020. Links | BibTeX | Tags: mobile navigation, smart sensors @inproceedings{Rottmann2020b, | |
Rottmann, N.; Kunavar, T.; Babič, J.; Peters, J.; Rueckert, E. Learning Hierarchical Acquisition Functions for Bayesian Optimization Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS’ 2020), 2020. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Rottmann2020HiBO, | |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Xue, H.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Parameter Optimization for Loop Closure Detection in Closed Environments Proceedings Article In: Workshop Paper at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 1–8, 2020. Links | BibTeX | Tags: mobile navigation, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Rottmann2020c, | |
Tolga-Can Çallar, Elmar Rueckert; Böttger, Sven Efficient Body Registration Using Single-View Range Imaging and Generic Shape Templates Proceedings Article In: 54th Annual Conference of the German Society for Biomedical Engineering (BMT 2020), 2020. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Medical Robotics @inproceedings{Çallar2020, | |
Xue, H.; Boettger, S.; Rottmann, N.; Pandya, H.; Bruder, R.; Neumann, G.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Sample-Efficient Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutional Strategy via Simulated Rollouts in Neural Networks Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Advances in Signal Processing and Artificial Intelligence (ASPAI’ 2020), 2020. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Manipulation, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Xue2020, | |
2019 |
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Stark, Svenja; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Experience Reuse with Probabilistic Movement Primitives Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2019., 2019. Links | BibTeX | Tags: movement primitives, Reinforcement Learning, Transfer Learning @inproceedings{Stark2019, | |
Boettger, S.; Callar, T. C.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Medical robotics simulation framework for application-specific optimal kinematics Proceedings Article In: Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering 2019, pp. 1–5, 2019. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Medical Robotics @inproceedings{Boettger2019, | |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Loop Closure Detection in Closed Environments Proceedings Article In: European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2019), 2019, ISBN: 978-1-7281-3605-9. Links | BibTeX | Tags: mobile navigation @inproceedings{Rottmann2019b, | |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Cataglyphis ant navigation strategies solve the global localization problem in robots with binary sensors Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (BIOSIGNALS), Prague, Czech Republic , 2019, ( February 22-24, 2019). Links | BibTeX | Tags: constraint optimization, mobile navigation, Simulation @inproceedings{Rottmann2019, | |
Rueckert, Elmar; Jauer, Philipp; Derksen, Alexander; Schweikard, Achim Dynamic Control Strategies for Cable-Driven Master Slave Robots Proceedings Article In: Keck, Tobias (Ed.): Proceedings on Minimally Invasive Surgery, Luebeck, Germany, 2019, (January 24-25, 2019). Links | BibTeX | Tags: Medical Robotics, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Rueckert2019c, | |
2018 |
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Gondaliya, Kaushikkumar D.; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Learning to Categorize Bug Reports with LSTM Networks Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in System Testing and Validation Lifecycle (VALID)., pp. 6, XPS (Xpert Publishing Services), Nice, France, 2018, ISBN: 978-1-61208-671-2, ( October 14-18, 2018). Links | BibTeX | Tags: Natural Language Processing, neural network, RNN @inproceedings{Gondaliya2018, | |
2017 |
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Rueckert, Elmar; Nakatenus, Moritz; Tosatto, Samuele; Peters, Jan Learning Inverse Dynamics Models in O(n) time with LSTM networks Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. Links | BibTeX | Tags: inverse dynamics, model learning, RNN @inproceedings{Humanoids2017Rueckert, | |
Tanneberg, Daniel; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Efficient Online Adaptation with Stochastic Recurrent Neural Networks Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. Links | BibTeX | Tags: intrinsic motivation, RNN, spiking @inproceedings{Tanneberg2017a, | |
Stark, Svenja; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar A Comparison of Distance Measures for Learning Nonparametric Motor Skill Libraries Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. Links | BibTeX | Tags: intrinsic motivation, movement primitives @inproceedings{Humanoids2017Stark, | |
Thiem, Simon; Stark, Svenja; Tanneberg, Daniel; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Simulation of the underactuated Sake Robotics Gripper in V-REP Proceedings Article In: Workshop at the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. Links | BibTeX | Tags: Manipulation, Simulation @inproceedings{Thiem2017b, | |
Tanneberg, Daniel; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Online Learning with Stochastic Recurrent Neural Networks using Intrinsic Motivation Signals Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2017. Links | BibTeX | Tags: intrinsic motivation, RNN, spiking @inproceedings{Tanneberg2017, | |
2016 |
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Tanneberg, Daniel; Paraschos, Alexandros; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Deep Spiking Networks for Model-based Planning in Humanoids Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2016. Links | BibTeX | Tags: model learning, RNN, spiking @inproceedings{tanneberg_humanoids16, | |
Azad, Morteza; Ortenzi, Valerio; Lin, Hsiu-Chin; Rueckert, Elmar; Mistry, Michael Model Estimation and Control of Complaint Contact Normal Force Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2016. Links | BibTeX | Tags: constraint optimization, human motor control, inverse dynamics, model learning @inproceedings{Humanoids2016Azad, | |
Kohlschuetter, Jan; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Learning Probabilistic Features from EMG Data for Predicting Knee Abnormalities Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the XIV Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing (MEDICON), 2016. Links | BibTeX | Tags: graphical models, muscle synergies @inproceedings{Kohlschuetter2016, | |
Modugno, Valerio; Neumann, Gerhard; Rueckert, Elmar; Oriolo, Giuseppe; Peters, Jan; Ivaldi, Serena Learning soft task priorities for control of redundant robots Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016. Links | BibTeX | Tags: constraint optimization, policy search @inproceedings{Modugno_PICRA_2016, | |
Sharma, David; Tanneberg, Daniel; Grosse-Wentrup, Moritz; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Adaptive Training Strategies for BCIs Proceedings Article In: Cybathlon Symposium, 2016. Links | BibTeX | Tags: human motor control, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Sharma2016, | |
Weber, Paul; Rueckert, Elmar; Calandra, Roberto; Peters, Jan; Beckerle, Philipp A Low-cost Sensor Glove with Vibrotactile Feedback and Multiple Finger Joint and Hand Motion Sensing for Human-Robot Interaction Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2016. Links | BibTeX | Tags: graphical models @inproceedings{ROMANS16_daglove, | |
2015 |
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Calandra, Roberto; Ivaldi, Serena; Deisenroth, Marc; Rueckert, Elmar; Peters, Jan Learning Inverse Dynamics Models with Contacts Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015. Links | BibTeX | Tags: inverse dynamics, model learning, neural network @inproceedings{Calandra2015, | |
Rueckert, Elmar; Mundo, Jan; Paraschos, Alexandros; Peters, Jan; Neumann, Gerhard Extracting Low-Dimensional Control Variables for Movement Primitives Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015. Links | BibTeX | Tags: movement primitives, Probabilistic Inference @inproceedings{Rueckert2015, | |
Paraschos, Alexandros; Rueckert, Elmar; Peters, Jan; Neumann, Gerhard Model-Free Probabilistic Movement Primitives for Physical Interaction Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015. Links | BibTeX | Tags: inverse dynamics, movement primitives @inproceedings{Paraschos2015, | |
Rueckert, Elmar; Lioutikov, Rudolf; Calandra, Roberto; Schmidt, Marius; Beckerle, Philipp; Peters, Jan Low-cost Sensor Glove with Force Feedback for Learning from Demonstrations using Probabilistic Trajectory Representations Proceedings Article In: ICRA 2015 Workshop on Tactile and force sensing for autonomous compliant intelligent robots, 2015. Links | BibTeX | Tags: graphical models @inproceedings{Rueckert2015b, | |
2014 |
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Rueckert, Elmar; Mindt, Max; Peters, Jan; Neumann, Gerhard Robust Policy Updates for Stochastic Optimal Control Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2014. Links | BibTeX | Tags: policy search, Probabilistic Inference, SOC @inproceedings{Rueckert2014, | |
2013 |
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Rueckert, Elmar; d’Avella, Andrea Learned Muscle Synergies as Prior in Dynamical Systems for Controlling Bio-mechanical and Robotic Systems Proceedings Article In: Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM), Conference Talk, pp. 27–28, 2013. Links | BibTeX | Tags: muscle synergies, policy search, Reinforcement Learning @inproceedings{Rueckert2013, | |
2011 |
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Rueckert, Elmar; Neumann, Gerhard A study of Morphological Computation by using Probabilistic Inference for Motor Planning Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC), pp. 51–53, 2011. Links | BibTeX | Tags: graphical models, morphological compuation, Probabilistic Inference, SOC @inproceedings{Rueckert2011, |
Compact List without Images
Proceedings Articles |
Dave, Vedant; Rueckert, Elmar Skill Disentanglement in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Proceedings Article In: In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2025. @inproceedings{Dave2025bb, |
Lygerakis, Fotios; Dave, Vedant; Rueckert, Elmar M2CURL: Sample-Efficient Multimodal Reinforcement Learning via Self-Supervised Representation Learning for Robotic Manipulation Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. @inproceedings{Lygerakis2024, |
Feith, Nikolaus; Rueckert, Elmar Integrating Human Expertise in Continuous Spaces: A Novel Interactive Bayesian Optimization Framework with Preference Expected Improvement Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. @inproceedings{Feith2024A, |
Feith, Nikolaus; Rueckert, Elmar Advancing Interactive Robot Learning: A User Interface Leveraging Mixed Reality and Dual Quaternions Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. @inproceedings{Feith2024B, |
Neubauer, Melanie; Rueckert, Elmar Semi-Autonomous Fast Object Segmentation and Tracking Tool for Industrial Applications Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2024), IEEE 2024. @inproceedings{Neubauer2024, |
Dave*, Vedant; Lygerakis*, Fotios; Rueckert, Elmar Multimodal Visual-Tactile Representation Learning through Self-Supervised Contrastive Pre-Training Proceedings Article In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024)., 2024, (* equal contribution). @inproceedings{Dave2024b, |
Nwankwo, Linus; Rueckert, Elmar The Conversation is the Command: Interacting with Real-World Autonomous Robots Through Natural Language Proceedings Article In: HRI '24: Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction., pp. 808–812, ACM/IEEE Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2024, ISBN: 9798400703232, (Published as late breaking results. Supplementary video: https://cloud.cps.unileoben.ac.at/index.php/s/fRE9XMosWDtJ339 ). @inproceedings{Nwankwo2024, In recent years, autonomous agents have surged in real-world environments such as our homes, offices, and public spaces. However, natural human-robot interaction remains a key challenge. In this paper, we introduce an approach that synergistically exploits the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) and multimodal vision-language models (VLMs) to enable humans to interact naturally with autonomous robots through conversational dialogue. We leveraged the LLMs to decode the high-level natural language instructions from humans and abstract them into precise robot actionable commands or queries. Further, we utilised the VLMs to provide a visual and semantic understanding of the robot's task environment. Our results with 99.13% command recognition accuracy and 97.96% commands execution success show that our approach can enhance human-robot interaction in real-world applications. The video demonstrations of this paper can be found at https://osf.io/wzyf6 and the code is available at our GitHub repository. |
Lygerakis, Fotios; Rueckert, Elmar CR-VAE: Contrastive Regularization on Variational Autoencoders for Preventing Posterior Collapse Proceedings Article In: Asian Conference of Artificial Intelligence Technology (ACAIT)., IEEE, 2023. @inproceedings{Lygerakis2023, |
Yadav, Harsh; Xue, Honghu; Rudall, Yan; Bakr, Mohamed; Hein, Benedikt; Rueckert, Elmar; Nguyen, Ngoc Thinh Deep Reinforcement Learning for Mapless Navigation of Autonomous Mobile Robot Proceedings Article In: International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing (ICSTCC), 2023, (October 11-13, 2023, Timisoara, Romania.). @inproceedings{Yadav2023b, |
Nwankwo, Linus; Rueckert, Elmar Understanding why SLAM algorithms fail in modern indoor environments Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Robotics in Alpe-Adria-Danube Region (RAAD). , pp. 186 – 194, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland., 2023. @inproceedings{Nwankwo2023, Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms are essential for the autonomous navigation of mobile robots. With the increasing demand for autonomous systems, it is crucial to evaluate and compare the performance of these algorithms in real-world environments. In this paper, we provide an evaluation strategy and real-world datasets to test and evaluate SLAM algorithms in complex and challenging indoor environments. Further, we analysed state-of-the-art (SOTA) SLAM algorithms based on various metrics such as absolute trajectory error, scale drift, and map accuracy and consistency. Our results demonstrate that SOTA SLAM algorithms often fail in challenging environments, with dynamic objects, transparent and reflecting surfaces. We also found that successful loop closures had a significant impact on the algorithm’s performance. These findings highlight the need for further research to improve the robustness of the algorithms in real-world scenarios. |
Keshavarz, Sahar; Vita, Petr; Rueckert, Elmar; Ortner, Ronald; Thonhauser, Gerhard A Reinforcement Learning Approach for Real-Time Autonomous Decision-Making in Well Construction Proceedings Article In: Society of Petroleum Engineers – SPE Symposium: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Shape the Future of the Energy Industry, AIS 2023, Society of Petroleum Engineers., 2023, ISBN: 9781613999882. @inproceedings{Keshavarz2023, |
Xue, Honghu; Song, Rui; Petzold, Julian; Hein, Benedikt; Hamann, Heiko; Rueckert, Elmar End-To-End Deep Reinforcement Learning for First-Person Pedestrian Visual Navigation in Urban Environments Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2022), 2022. @inproceedings{Xue2022b, We solve a visual navigation problem in an urban setting via deep reinforcement learning in an end-to-end manner. A major challenge of a first-person visual navigation problem lies in severe partial observability and sparse positive experiences of reaching the goal. To address partial observability, we propose a novel 3D-temporal convolutional network to encode sequential historical visual observations, its effectiveness is verified by comparing to a commonly-used frame-stacking approach. For sparse positive samples, we propose an improved automatic curriculum learning algorithm NavACL+, which proposes meaningful curricula starting from easy tasks and gradually generalizes to challenging ones. NavACL+ is shown to facilitate the learning process, greatly improve the task success rate on difficult tasks by at least 40% and offer enhanced generalization to different initial poses compared to training from a fixed initial pose and the original NavACL algorithm. |
Dave, Vedant; Rueckert, Elmar Predicting full-arm grasping motions from anticipated tactile responses Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2022), 2022. @inproceedings{Dave2022, Tactile sensing provides significant information about the state of the environment for performing manipulation tasks. Depending on the physical properties of the object, manipulation tasks can exhibit large variation in their movements. For a grasping task, the movement of the arm and of the end effector varies depending on different points of contact on the object, especially if the object is non-homogeneous in hardness and/or has an uneven geometry. In this paper, we propose Tactile Probabilistic Movement Primitives (TacProMPs), to learn a highly non-linear relationship between the desired tactile responses and the full-arm movement. We solely condition on the tactile responses to infer the complex manipulation skills. We formulate a joint trajectory of full-arm joints with tactile data, leverage the model to condition on the desired tactile response from the non-homogeneous object and infer the full-arm (7-dof panda arm and 19-dof gripper hand) motion. We use a Gaussian Mixture Model of primitives to address the multimodality in demonstrations. We also show that the measurement noise adjustment must be taken into account due to multiple systems working in collaboration. We validate and show the robustness of the approach through two experiments. First, we consider an object with non-uniform hardness. Grasping from different locations require different motion, and results into different tactile responses. Second, we have an object with homogeneous hardness, but we grasp it with widely varying grasping configurations. Our result shows that TacProMPs can successfully model complex multimodal skills and generalise to new situations. |
Leonel, Rozo*; Vedant, Dave* Orientation Probabilistic Movement Primitives on Riemannian Manifolds Proceedings Article In: Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), pp. 11, 2022, (* equal contribution). @inproceedings{Leonel2022, Learning complex robot motions necessarily demands to have models that are able to encode and retrieve full-pose trajectories when tasks are defined in operational spaces. Probabilistic movement primitives (ProMPs) stand out as a principled approach that models trajectory distributions learned from demonstrations. ProMPs allow for trajectory modulation and blending to achieve better generalization to novel situations. However, when ProMPs are employed in operational space, their original formulation does not directly apply to full-pose movements including rotational trajectories described by quaternions. This paper proposes a Riemannian formulation of ProMPs that enables encoding and retrieving of quaternion trajectories. Our method builds on Riemannian manifold theory, and exploits multilinear geodesic regression for estimating the ProMPs parameters. This novel approach makes ProMPs a suitable model for learning complex full-pose robot motion patterns. Riemannian ProMPs are tested on toy examples to illustrate their workflow, and on real learning-from-demonstration experiments. |
Denz, R.; Demirci, R.; Cansev, E.; Bliek, A.; Beckerle, P.; Rueckert, E.; Rottmann, N. A high-accuracy, low-budget Sensor Glove for Trajectory Model Learning Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Advanced Robotics , pp. 7, 2021. @inproceedings{Denz2021, |
Rottmann, N.; Denz, R.; Bruder, R.; Rueckert, E. Probabilistic Approach for Complete Coverage Path Planning with low-cost Systems Proceedings Article In: European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2021), 2021. @inproceedings{Rottmann2021, |
Akbulut, M Tuluhan; Oztop, Erhan; Seker, M Yunus; Xue, Honghu; Tekden, Ahmet E; Ugur, Emre ACNMP: Skill Transfer and Task Extrapolation through Learning from Demonstration and Reinforcement Learning via Representation Sharing Proceedings Article In: 2020. @inproceedings{nokey, To equip robots with dexterous skills, an effective approach is to first transfer the desired skill via Learning from Demonstration (LfD), then let the robot improve it by self-exploration via Reinforcement Learning (RL). In this paper, we propose a novel LfD+RL framework, namely Adaptive Conditional Neural Movement Primitives (ACNMP), that allows efficient policy improvement in novel environments and effective skill transfer between different agents. This is achieved through exploiting the latent representation learned by the underlying Conditional Neural Process (CNP) model, and simultaneous training of the model with supervised learning (SL) for acquiring the demonstrated trajectories and via RL for new trajectory discovery. Through simulation experiments, we show that (i) ACNMP enables the system to extrapolate to situations where pure LfD fails; (ii) Simultaneous training of the system through SL and RL preserves the shape of demonstrations while adapting to novel situations due to the shared representations used by both learners; (iii) ACNMP enables order-of-magnitude sample-efficient RL in extrapolation of reaching tasks compared to the existing approaches; (iv) ACNMPs can be used to implement skill transfer between robots having different morphology, with competitive learning speeds and importantly with less number of assumptions compared to the state-of-the-art approaches. Finally, we show the real-world suitability of ACNMPs through real robot experiments that involve obstacle avoidance, pick and place and pouring actions. |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Exploiting Chlorophyll Fluorescense for Building Robust low-Cost Mowing Area Detectors Proceedings Article In: IEEE SENSORS , pp. 1–4, 2020. @inproceedings{Rottmann2020b, |
Rottmann, N.; Kunavar, T.; Babič, J.; Peters, J.; Rueckert, E. Learning Hierarchical Acquisition Functions for Bayesian Optimization Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS’ 2020), 2020. @inproceedings{Rottmann2020HiBO, |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Xue, H.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Parameter Optimization for Loop Closure Detection in Closed Environments Proceedings Article In: Workshop Paper at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 1–8, 2020. @inproceedings{Rottmann2020c, |
Tolga-Can Çallar, Elmar Rueckert; Böttger, Sven Efficient Body Registration Using Single-View Range Imaging and Generic Shape Templates Proceedings Article In: 54th Annual Conference of the German Society for Biomedical Engineering (BMT 2020), 2020. @inproceedings{Çallar2020, |
Xue, H.; Boettger, S.; Rottmann, N.; Pandya, H.; Bruder, R.; Neumann, G.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Sample-Efficient Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolutional Strategy via Simulated Rollouts in Neural Networks Proceedings Article In: International Conference on Advances in Signal Processing and Artificial Intelligence (ASPAI’ 2020), 2020. @inproceedings{Xue2020, |
Stark, Svenja; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Experience Reuse with Probabilistic Movement Primitives Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2019., 2019. @inproceedings{Stark2019, |
Boettger, S.; Callar, T. C.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Medical robotics simulation framework for application-specific optimal kinematics Proceedings Article In: Current Directions in Biomedical Engineering 2019, pp. 1–5, 2019. @inproceedings{Boettger2019, |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Loop Closure Detection in Closed Environments Proceedings Article In: European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2019), 2019, ISBN: 978-1-7281-3605-9. @inproceedings{Rottmann2019b, |
Rottmann, N.; Bruder, R.; Schweikard, A.; Rueckert, E. Cataglyphis ant navigation strategies solve the global localization problem in robots with binary sensors Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (BIOSIGNALS), Prague, Czech Republic , 2019, ( February 22-24, 2019). @inproceedings{Rottmann2019, |
Rueckert, Elmar; Jauer, Philipp; Derksen, Alexander; Schweikard, Achim Dynamic Control Strategies for Cable-Driven Master Slave Robots Proceedings Article In: Keck, Tobias (Ed.): Proceedings on Minimally Invasive Surgery, Luebeck, Germany, 2019, (January 24-25, 2019). @inproceedings{Rueckert2019c, |
Gondaliya, Kaushikkumar D.; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Learning to Categorize Bug Reports with LSTM Networks Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in System Testing and Validation Lifecycle (VALID)., pp. 6, XPS (Xpert Publishing Services), Nice, France, 2018, ISBN: 978-1-61208-671-2, ( October 14-18, 2018). @inproceedings{Gondaliya2018, |
Rueckert, Elmar; Nakatenus, Moritz; Tosatto, Samuele; Peters, Jan Learning Inverse Dynamics Models in O(n) time with LSTM networks Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. @inproceedings{Humanoids2017Rueckert, |
Tanneberg, Daniel; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Efficient Online Adaptation with Stochastic Recurrent Neural Networks Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. @inproceedings{Tanneberg2017a, |
Stark, Svenja; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar A Comparison of Distance Measures for Learning Nonparametric Motor Skill Libraries Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. @inproceedings{Humanoids2017Stark, |
Thiem, Simon; Stark, Svenja; Tanneberg, Daniel; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Simulation of the underactuated Sake Robotics Gripper in V-REP Proceedings Article In: Workshop at the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2017. @inproceedings{Thiem2017b, |
Tanneberg, Daniel; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Online Learning with Stochastic Recurrent Neural Networks using Intrinsic Motivation Signals Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2017. @inproceedings{Tanneberg2017, |
Tanneberg, Daniel; Paraschos, Alexandros; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Deep Spiking Networks for Model-based Planning in Humanoids Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2016. @inproceedings{tanneberg_humanoids16, |
Azad, Morteza; Ortenzi, Valerio; Lin, Hsiu-Chin; Rueckert, Elmar; Mistry, Michael Model Estimation and Control of Complaint Contact Normal Force Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2016. @inproceedings{Humanoids2016Azad, |
Kohlschuetter, Jan; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Learning Probabilistic Features from EMG Data for Predicting Knee Abnormalities Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the XIV Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing (MEDICON), 2016. @inproceedings{Kohlschuetter2016, |
Modugno, Valerio; Neumann, Gerhard; Rueckert, Elmar; Oriolo, Giuseppe; Peters, Jan; Ivaldi, Serena Learning soft task priorities for control of redundant robots Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016. @inproceedings{Modugno_PICRA_2016, |
Sharma, David; Tanneberg, Daniel; Grosse-Wentrup, Moritz; Peters, Jan; Rueckert, Elmar Adaptive Training Strategies for BCIs Proceedings Article In: Cybathlon Symposium, 2016. @inproceedings{Sharma2016, |
Weber, Paul; Rueckert, Elmar; Calandra, Roberto; Peters, Jan; Beckerle, Philipp A Low-cost Sensor Glove with Vibrotactile Feedback and Multiple Finger Joint and Hand Motion Sensing for Human-Robot Interaction Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2016. @inproceedings{ROMANS16_daglove, |
Calandra, Roberto; Ivaldi, Serena; Deisenroth, Marc; Rueckert, Elmar; Peters, Jan Learning Inverse Dynamics Models with Contacts Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015. @inproceedings{Calandra2015, |
Rueckert, Elmar; Mundo, Jan; Paraschos, Alexandros; Peters, Jan; Neumann, Gerhard Extracting Low-Dimensional Control Variables for Movement Primitives Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015. @inproceedings{Rueckert2015, |
Paraschos, Alexandros; Rueckert, Elmar; Peters, Jan; Neumann, Gerhard Model-Free Probabilistic Movement Primitives for Physical Interaction Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015. @inproceedings{Paraschos2015, |
Rueckert, Elmar; Lioutikov, Rudolf; Calandra, Roberto; Schmidt, Marius; Beckerle, Philipp; Peters, Jan Low-cost Sensor Glove with Force Feedback for Learning from Demonstrations using Probabilistic Trajectory Representations Proceedings Article In: ICRA 2015 Workshop on Tactile and force sensing for autonomous compliant intelligent robots, 2015. @inproceedings{Rueckert2015b, |
Rueckert, Elmar; Mindt, Max; Peters, Jan; Neumann, Gerhard Robust Policy Updates for Stochastic Optimal Control Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), 2014. @inproceedings{Rueckert2014, |
Rueckert, Elmar; d’Avella, Andrea Learned Muscle Synergies as Prior in Dynamical Systems for Controlling Bio-mechanical and Robotic Systems Proceedings Article In: Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM), Conference Talk, pp. 27–28, 2013. @inproceedings{Rueckert2013, |
Rueckert, Elmar; Neumann, Gerhard A study of Morphological Computation by using Probabilistic Inference for Motor Planning Proceedings Article In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC), pp. 51–53, 2011. @inproceedings{Rueckert2011, |