In this paper, we employ active simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (ASRIS) to aid in establishing and enhancing communication within a commensal symbiotic radio (CSR) network. Unlike traditional RIS, ASRIS not only ensures coverage in an omni directional manner but also amplifies received signals, consequently elevating overall network performance. in the first phase, base station (BS) with active massive MIMO antennas, send ambient signal to SBDs. In the first phase, the BS transmits ambient signals to the symbiotic backscatter devices (SBDs), and after harvesting the energy and modulating their information onto the signal carrier, the SBDs send Backscatter signals back to the BS. In this scheme, we employ the Backscatter Relay system to facilitate the transmission of information from the SBDs to the symbiotic User Equipments (SUEs) with the assistance of the BS. In the second phase, the BS transmits information signals to the SUEs after eliminating interference using the Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) method. ASRIS is employed to establish communication among SUEs lacking a line of sight (LoS) and to amplify power signals for SUEs with a LoS connection to the BS. It is worth noting that we use NOMA for multiple access in all network. The main goal of this paper is to maximize the sum throughput between all users. To achieve this, we formulate an optimization problem with variables including active beamforming coefficients at the BS and ASRIS, as well as the phase adjustments of ASRIS and scheduling parameters between the first and second phases. To model this optimization problem, we employ three deep reinforcement learning (DRL) methods, namely PPO, TD3, and A3C. Finally, the mentioned methods are simulated and compared with each other.

Exploration of the lunar south pole with a solar-powered rover is challenging due to the highly dynamic solar illumination conditions and the presence of permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). In turn, careful planning in space and time is essential. Mission-level path planning is a global, spatiotemporal paradigm that addresses this challenge, taking into account rover resources and mission requirements. However, existing approaches do not proactively account for random disturbances, such as recurring faults, that may temporarily delay rover traverse progress. In this paper, we formulate a chance-constrained mission-level planning problem for the exploration of PSRs by a solar-powered rover affected by random faults. The objective is to find a policy that visits as many waypoints of scientific interest as possible while respecting an upper bound on the probability of mission failure. Our approach assumes that faults occur randomly, but at a known, constant average rate. Each fault is resolved within a fixed time, simulating the recovery period of an autonomous system or the time required for a team of human operators to intervene. Unlike solutions based upon dynamic programming alone, our method breaks the chance-constrained optimization problem into smaller offline and online subtasks to make the problem computationally tractable. Specifically, our solution combines existing mission-level path planning techniques with a stochastic reachability analysis component. We find mission plans that remain within reach of safety throughout large state spaces. To empirically validate our algorithm, we simulate mission scenarios using orbital terrain and illumination maps of Cabeus Crater. Results from simulations of multi-day, long-range drives in the LCROSS impact region are also presented.

The aim of coordinated planning is to avoid robot-to-robot collisions in a multi-robot system, and there are two standard solution approaches: centralized planning and decoupled planning. Our first contribution is a decoupled planning approach that ensures C2-continuous control commands with zero velocities at the start and goal. We benchmark our decoupled approach with a centralized approach. Contrary to literature, we show that for a standard motion planning pipeline, such as the one used by MoveIt!, centralized planning is superior to decoupled planning in dual-arm manipulation: It has a lower computation time and a higher robustness. Our second contribution is an optimization that minimizes the rotational motion of an end-effector while considering obstacle avoidance. We derive the analytic gradients of this optimization problem, making the algorithm suitable for online motion planning. Our optimization extends an existing path quality improvement method. Integrating it into our decoupled approach overcomes its shortcomings and provides a motion planning pipeline that is robust at up to 99.9% with a planning time of less than 1s and that computes high-quality paths.

The intricate and multi-stage task in dynamic public spaces like luggage trolley collection in airports presents both a promising opportunity and an ongoing challenge for automated service robots. Previous research has primarily focused on handling a single trolley or individual functional components, creating a gap in providing cost-effective and efficient solutions for practical scenarios. In this paper, we propose a mobile manipulation robot incorporated with an autonomy framework for the collection and transportation of multiple trolleys that can significantly enhance operational efficiency. We address the key challenges in the trolley collection problem through the novel design of the mechanical system and the vision-based control strategy. We design a lightweight manipulator and docking mechanism, optimized for the sequential stacking and transportation of multiple trolleys. Additionally, based on the Control Lyapunov Function and Control Barrier Function, we propose a novel vision-based control with the online Quadratic Programming which significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of the collection process. The practical application of our system is demonstrated in real world scenarios, where it successfully executes multiple-trolley collection tasks.

Projected Gradient Ascent (PGA) is the most commonly used optimization scheme in machine learning and operations research areas. Nevertheless, numerous studies and examples have shown that the PGA methods may fail to achieve the tight approximation ratio for continuous DR-submodular maximization problems. To address this challenge, we present a boosting technique in this paper, which can efficiently improve the approximation guarantee of the standard PGA to \emph{optimal} with only small modifications on the objective function. The fundamental idea of our boosting technique is to exploit non-oblivious search to derive a novel auxiliary function $F$, whose stationary points are excellent approximations to the global maximum of the original DR-submodular objective $f$. Specifically, when $f$ is monotone and $\gamma$-weakly DR-submodular, we propose an auxiliary function $F$ whose stationary points can provide a better $(1-e^{-\gamma})$-approximation than the $(\gamma^2/(1+\gamma^2))$-approximation guaranteed by the stationary points of $f$ itself. Similarly, for the non-monotone case, we devise another auxiliary function $F$ whose stationary points can achieve an optimal $\frac{1-\min_{\boldsymbol{x}\in\mathcal{C}}\|\boldsymbol{x}\|_{\infty}}{4}$-approximation guarantee where $\mathcal{C}$ is a convex constraint set. In contrast, the stationary points of the original non-monotone DR-submodular function can be arbitrarily bad~\citep{chen2023continuous}. Furthermore, we demonstrate the scalability of our boosting technique on four problems. In all of these four problems, our resulting variants of boosting PGA algorithm beat the previous standard PGA in several aspects such as approximation ratio and efficiency. Finally, we corroborate our theoretical findings with numerical experiments, which demonstrate the effectiveness of our boosting PGA methods.

Personalized federated learning aims to address data heterogeneity across local clients in federated learning. However, current methods blindly incorporate either full model parameters or predefined partial parameters in personalized federated learning. They fail to customize the collaboration manner according to each local client's data characteristics, causing unpleasant aggregation results. To address this essential issue, we propose $\textit{Learn2pFed}$, a novel algorithm-unrolling-based personalized federated learning framework, enabling each client to adaptively select which part of its local model parameters should participate in collaborative training. The key novelty of the proposed $\textit{Learn2pFed}$ is to optimize each local model parameter's degree of participant in collaboration as learnable parameters via algorithm unrolling methods. This approach brings two benefits: 1) mathmatically determining the participation degree of local model parameters in the federated collaboration, and 2) obtaining more stable and improved solutions. Extensive experiments on various tasks, including regression, forecasting, and image classification, demonstrate that $\textit{Learn2pFed}$ significantly outperforms previous personalized federated learning methods.

In this paper, we propose a method, based on graph signal processing, to optimize the choice of $k$ in $k$-nearest neighbor graphs ($k$NNGs). $k$NN is one of the most popular approaches and is widely used in machine learning and signal processing. The parameter $k$ represents the number of neighbors that are connected to the target node; however, its appropriate selection is still a challenging problem. Therefore, most $k$NNGs use ad hoc selection methods for $k$. In the proposed method, we assume that a different $k$ can be chosen for each node. We formulate a discrete optimization problem to seek the best $k$ with a constraint on the sum of distances of the connected nodes. The optimal $k$ values are efficiently obtained without solving a complex optimization. Furthermore, we reveal that the proposed method is closely related to existing graph learning methods. In experiments on real datasets, we demonstrate that the $k$NNGs obtained with our method are sparse and can determine an appropriate variable number of edges per node. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed method for point cloud denoising, comparing our denoising performance with achievable graph construction methods that can be scaled to typical point cloud sizes (e.g., thousands of nodes).

This paper aims to develop an approach for the reconfiguration of a parallel kinematic manipulator (PKM) with four degrees of freedom (DoF) designed to tackle tasks of diagnosis and rehabilitation in an injured knee. The original layout of the 4-DoF manipulator presents Type-II singular configurations within its workspace. Thus, we proposed to reconfigure the manipulator to avoid such singularities (owing to the Forward Jacobian of the PKM) during typical rehabilitation trajectories. We achieve the reconfiguration of the PKM through a minimization problem where the design variables correspond to the anchoring points of the robot limbs on fixed and mobile platforms. The objective function relies on the minimization of the forces exerted by the actuators for a specific trajectory. The minimization problem considers constraint equations to avoid Type-II singularities, which guarantee the feasibility of the active generalized coordinates for a particular path. To evaluate the proposed conceptual strategy, we build a prototype where reconfiguration occurs by moving the position of the anchoring points to holes bored in the fixed and mobile platforms. Simulations and experiments of several study cases enable testing the strategy performance. The results show that the reconfiguration strategy allows obtaining trajectories having minimum actuation forces without Type-II singularities.

Automated drug dispensing systems (ADDSs) are increasingly in demand in today's pharmacies, primarily driven by the growing ageing population. Recognizing the practical challenges faced by pharmacies implementing ADDSs, this study aims to optimize the layout design and sequencing issues within a human-machine cooperation environment to enhance the system throughput of ADDSs. Specifically, we develop models for drug retrieval sequencing under different system layout designs, taking into account the stochastic sorting time of pharmacists. The prescription order arrival pattern follows a successive arrival mode. To assess the efficiency of ADDSs with one input/output point and two input/output points, we propose dual command retrieval sequencing models that optimize the retrieval sequence of drugs in adjacent prescription orders. Notably, our models incorporate the stochastic sorting time of pharmacists to analyze its impact on ADDS performance. Through experimental comparisons of average picking times for prescription orders under various operational conditions, we demonstrate that a system layout design incorporating two input/output points significantly enhances the efficiency of prescription order fulfilment within a human-machine cooperation environment. Furthermore, our proposed retrieval sequencing method outperforms dynamic programming, greedy, and random strategies in terms of improving prescription order-picking efficiency. By addressing the layout design and sequencing challenges, our research contributes to the field of intelligent warehousing, particularly in smart pharmacies. The findings provide valuable insights for healthcare facilities and organizations seeking to optimize ADDS performance and enhance drug dispensing efficiency.

Solving constrained multi-objective optimization problems with evolutionary algorithms has attracted considerable attention. Various constrained multi-objective optimization evolutionary algorithms (CMOEAs) have been developed with the use of different algorithmic strategies, evolutionary operators, and constraint-handling techniques. The performance of CMOEAs may be heavily dependent on the operators used, however, it is usually difficult to select suitable operators for the problem at hand. Hence, improving operator selection is promising and necessary for CMOEAs. This work proposes an online operator selection framework assisted by Deep Reinforcement Learning. The dynamics of the population, including convergence, diversity, and feasibility, are regarded as the state; the candidate operators are considered as actions; and the improvement of the population state is treated as the reward. By using a Q-Network to learn a policy to estimate the Q-values of all actions, the proposed approach can adaptively select an operator that maximizes the improvement of the population according to the current state and thereby improve the algorithmic performance. The framework is embedded into four popular CMOEAs and assessed on 42 benchmark problems. The experimental results reveal that the proposed Deep Reinforcement Learning-assisted operator selection significantly improves the performance of these CMOEAs and the resulting algorithm obtains better versatility compared to nine state-of-the-art CMOEAs.