Search-Based Path Planning among Movable Obstacles

This paper investigates Path planning Among Movable Obstacles (PAMO), which seeks a minimum cost collision-free path among static obstacles from start to goal while allowing the robot to push away movable obstacles (i.e., objects) along its path when needed. To develop planners that are complete and optimal for PAMO, the planner has to search a giant state space involving both the location of the robot as well as the locations of the objects, which grows exponentially with respect to the number of objects. The main idea in this paper is that, only a small fraction of this giant state space needs to be explored during planning as guided by a heuristic, and most of the objects far away from the robot are intact, which thus leads to runtime efficient algorithms. Based on this idea, this paper introduces two PAMO formulations, i.e., bi-objective and resource constrained problems in an occupancy grid, and develops PAMO*, a search method with completeness and solution optimality guarantees, to solve the two problems. We then further extend PAMO* to hybrid-state PAMO* to plan in continuous spaces with high-fidelity interaction between the robot and the objects. Our results show that, PAMO* can often find optimal solutions within a second in cluttered environments with up to 400 objects.

Air-FAR: Fast and Adaptable Routing for Aerial Navigation in Large-scale Complex Unknown Environments

This paper presents a novel method for real-time 3D navigation in large-scale, complex environments using a hierarchical 3D visibility graph (V-graph). The proposed algorithm addresses the computational challenges of V-graph construction and shortest path search on the graph simultaneously. By introducing hierarchical 3D V-graph construction with heuristic visibility update, the 3D V-graph is constructed in O(K*n^2logn) time, which guarantees real-time performance. The proposed iterative divide-and-conquer path search method can achieve near-optimal path solutions within the constraints of real-time operations. The algorithm ensures efficient 3D V-graph construction and path search. Extensive simulated and real-world environments validated that our algorithm reduces the travel time by 42%, achieves up to 24.8% higher trajectory efficiency, and runs faster than most benchmarks by orders of magnitude in complex environments. The code and developed simulator have been open-sourced to facilitate future research.

ViewActive: Active viewpoint optimization from a single image

When observing objects, humans benefit from their spatial visualization and mental rotation ability to envision potential optimal viewpoints based on the current observation. This capability is crucial for enabling robots to achieve efficient and robust scene perception during operation, as optimal viewpoints provide essential and informative features for accurately representing scenes in 2D images, thereby enhancing downstream tasks. To endow robots with this human-like active viewpoint optimization capability, we propose ViewActive, a modernized machine learning approach drawing inspiration from aspect graph, which provides viewpoint optimization guidance based solely on the current 2D image input. Specifically, we introduce the 3D Viewpoint Quality Field (VQF), a compact and consistent representation for viewpoint quality distribution similar to an aspect graph, composed of three general-purpose viewpoint quality metrics: self-occlusion ratio, occupancy-aware surface normal entropy, and visual entropy. We utilize pre-trained image encoders to extract robust visual and semantic features, which are then decoded into the 3D VQF, allowing our model to generalize effectively across diverse objects, including unseen categories.The lightweight ViewActive network (72 FPS on a single GPU) significantly enhances the performance of state-of-the-art object recognition pipelines and can be integrated into real-time motion planning for robotic applications. Our code and dataset are available here: https://github.com/jiayi-wu-umd/ViewActive

Recent Event Camera Innovations: A Survey

Event-based vision, inspired by the human visual system, offers transformative capabilities such as low latency, high dynamic range, and reduced power consumption. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of event cameras, tracing their evolution over time. It introduces the fundamental principles of event cameras, compares them with traditional frame cameras, and highlights their unique characteristics and operational differences. The survey covers various event camera models from leading manufacturers, key technological milestones, and influential research contributions. It explores diverse application areas across different domains and discusses essential real-world and synthetic datasets for research advancement. Additionally, the role of event camera simulators in testing and development is discussed. This survey aims to consolidate the current state of event cameras and inspire further innovation in this rapidly evolving field. To support the research community, a GitHub page (https://github.com/chakravarthi589/Event-based-Vision_Resources) categorizes past and future research articles and consolidates valuable resources.

Active Human Pose Estimation via an Autonomous UAV Agent

One of the core activities of an active observer involves moving to secure a "better" view of the scene, where the definition of "better" is task-dependent. This paper focuses on the task of human pose estimation from videos capturing a person's activity. Self-occlusions within the scene can complicate or even prevent accurate human pose estimation. To address this, relocating the camera to a new vantage point is necessary to clarify the view, thereby improving 2D human pose estimation. This paper formalizes the process of achieving an improved viewpoint. Our proposed solution to this challenge comprises three main components: a NeRF-based Drone-View Data Generation Framework, an On-Drone Network for Camera View Error Estimation, and a Combined Planner for devising a feasible motion plan to reposition the camera based on the predicted errors for camera views. The Data Generation Framework utilizes NeRF-based methods to generate a comprehensive dataset of human poses and activities, enhancing the drone's adaptability in various scenarios. The Camera View Error Estimation Network is designed to evaluate the current human pose and identify the most promising next viewing angles for the drone, ensuring a reliable and precise pose estimation from those angles. Finally, the combined planner incorporates these angles while considering the drone's physical and environmental limitations, employing efficient algorithms to navigate safe and effective flight paths. This system represents a significant advancement in active 2D human pose estimation for an autonomous UAV agent, offering substantial potential for applications in aerial cinematography by improving the performance of autonomous human pose estimation and maintaining the operational safety and efficiency of UAVs.

Diving Deep into the Motion Representation of Video-Text Models

Videos are more informative than images because they capture the dynamics of the scene. By representing motion in videos, we can capture dynamic activities. In this work, we introduce GPT-4 generated motion descriptions that capture fine-grained motion descriptions of activities and apply them to three action datasets. We evaluated several video-text models on the task of retrieval of motion descriptions. We found that they fall far behind human expert performance on two action datasets, raising the question of whether video-text models understand motion in videos. To address it, we introduce a method of improving motion understanding in video-text models by utilizing motion descriptions. This method proves to be effective on two action datasets for the motion description retrieval task. The results draw attention to the need for quality captions involving fine-grained motion information in existing datasets and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed pipeline in understanding fine-grained motion during video-text retrieval.

Event3DGS: Event-based 3D Gaussian Splatting for Fast Egomotion

The recent emergence of 3D Gaussian splatting (3DGS) leverages the advantage of explicit point-based representations, which significantly improves the rendering speed and quality of novel-view synthesis. However, 3D radiance field rendering in environments with high-dynamic motion or challenging illumination condition remains problematic in real-world robotic tasks. The reason is that fast egomotion is prevalent real-world robotic tasks, which induces motion blur, leading to inaccuracies and artifacts in the reconstructed structure. To alleviate this problem, we propose Event3DGS, the first method that learns Gaussian Splatting solely from raw event streams. By exploiting the high temporal resolution of event cameras and explicit point-based representation, Event3DGS can reconstruct high-fidelity 3D structures solely from the event streams under fast egomotion. Our sparsity-aware sampling and progressive training approaches allow for better reconstruction quality and consistency. To further enhance the fidelity of appearance, we explicitly incorporate the motion blur formation process into a differentiable rasterizer, which is used with a limited set of blurred RGB images to refine the appearance. Extensive experiments on multiple datasets validate the superior rendering quality of Event3DGS compared with existing approaches, with over 95% lower training time and faster rendering speed in orders of magnitude.

Microsaccade-inspired Event Camera for Robotics

Neuromorphic vision sensors or event cameras have made the visual perception of extremely low reaction time possible, opening new avenues for high-dynamic robotics applications. These event cameras' output is dependent on both motion and texture. However, the event camera fails to capture object edges that are parallel to the camera motion. This is a problem intrinsic to the sensor and therefore challenging to solve algorithmically. Human vision deals with perceptual fading using the active mechanism of small involuntary eye movements, the most prominent ones called microsaccades. By moving the eyes constantly and slightly during fixation, microsaccades can substantially maintain texture stability and persistence. Inspired by microsaccades, we designed an event-based perception system capable of simultaneously maintaining low reaction time and stable texture. In this design, a rotating wedge prism was mounted in front of the aperture of an event camera to redirect light and trigger events. The geometrical optics of the rotating wedge prism allows for algorithmic compensation of the additional rotational motion, resulting in a stable texture appearance and high informational output independent of external motion. The hardware device and software solution are integrated into a system, which we call Artificial MIcrosaccade-enhanced EVent camera (AMI-EV). Benchmark comparisons validate the superior data quality of AMI-EV recordings in scenarios where both standard cameras and event cameras fail to deliver. Various real-world experiments demonstrate the potential of the system to facilitate robotics perception both for low-level and high-level vision tasks.

Interactive-FAR:Interactive, Fast and Adaptable Routing for Navigation Among Movable Obstacles in Complex Unknown Environments

This paper introduces a real-time algorithm for navigating complex unknown environments cluttered with movable obstacles. Our algorithm achieves fast, adaptable routing by actively attempting to manipulate obstacles during path planning and adjusting the global plan from sensor feedback. The main contributions include an improved dynamic Directed Visibility Graph (DV-graph) for rapid global path searching, a real-time interaction planning method that adapts online from new sensory perceptions, and a comprehensive framework designed for interactive navigation in complex unknown or partially known environments. Our algorithm is capable of replanning the global path in several milliseconds. It can also attempt to move obstacles, update their affordances, and adapt strategies accordingly. Extensive experiments validate that our algorithm reduces the travel time by 33%, achieves up to 49% higher path efficiency, and runs faster than traditional methods by orders of magnitude in complex environments. It has been demonstrated to be the most efficient solution in terms of speed and efficiency for interactive navigation in environments of such complexity. We also open-source our code in the docker demo to facilitate future research.

TimeRewind: Rewinding Time with Image-and-Events Video Diffusion

This paper addresses the novel challenge of ``rewinding'' time from a single captured image to recover the fleeting moments missed just before the shutter button is pressed. This problem poses a significant challenge in computer vision and computational photography, as it requires predicting plausible pre-capture motion from a single static frame, an inherently ill-posed task due to the high degree of freedom in potential pixel movements. We overcome this challenge by leveraging the emerging technology of neuromorphic event cameras, which capture motion information with high temporal resolution, and integrating this data with advanced image-to-video diffusion models. Our proposed framework introduces an event motion adaptor conditioned on event camera data, guiding the diffusion model to generate videos that are visually coherent and physically grounded in the captured events. Through extensive experimentation, we demonstrate the capability of our approach to synthesize high-quality videos that effectively ``rewind'' time, showcasing the potential of combining event camera technology with generative models. Our work opens new avenues for research at the intersection of computer vision, computational photography, and generative modeling, offering a forward-thinking solution to capturing missed moments and enhancing future consumer cameras and smartphones. Please see the project page at https://timerewind.github.io/ for video results and code release.