Planning & Scheduling
On the Interplay of Artificial Intelligence and Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks: A Survey
Bakambekova, Adilya, Kouzayha, Nour, Al-Naffouri, Tareq
Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks (SAGINs), which incorporate space and aerial networks with terrestrial wireless systems, are vital enablers of the emerging sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. Besides bringing significant benefits to various applications and services, SAGINs are envisioned to extend high-speed broadband coverage to remote areas, such as small towns or mining sites, or areas where terrestrial infrastructure cannot reach, such as airplanes or maritime use cases. However, due to the limited power and storage resources, as well as other constraints introduced by the design of terrestrial networks, SAGINs must be intelligently configured and controlled to satisfy the envisioned requirements. Meanwhile, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another critical enabler of 6G. Due to massive amounts of available data, AI has been leveraged to address pressing challenges of current and future wireless networks. By adding AI and facilitating the decision-making and prediction procedures, SAGINs can effectively adapt to their surrounding environment, thus enhancing the performance of various metrics. In this work, we aim to investigate the interplay of AI and SAGINs by providing a holistic overview of state-of-the-art research in AI-enabled SAGINs. Specifically, we present a comprehensive overview of some potential applications of AI in SAGINs. We also cover open issues in employing AI and detail the contributions of SAGINs in the development of AI. Finally, we highlight some limitations of the existing research works and outline potential future research directions.
On the Prospects of Incorporating Large Language Models (LLMs) in Automated Planning and Scheduling (APS)
Pallagani, Vishal, Roy, Kaushik, Muppasani, Bharath, Fabiano, Francesco, Loreggia, Andrea, Murugesan, Keerthiram, Srivastava, Biplav, Rossi, Francesca, Horesh, Lior, Sheth, Amit
Automated Planning and Scheduling is among the growing areas in Artificial Intelligence (AI) where mention of LLMs has gained popularity. Based on a comprehensive review of 126 papers, this paper investigates eight categories based on the unique applications of LLMs in addressing various aspects of planning problems: language translation, plan generation, model construction, multi-agent planning, interactive planning, heuristics optimization, tool integration, and brain-inspired planning. For each category, we articulate the issues considered and existing gaps. A critical insight resulting from our review is that the true potential of LLMs unfolds when they are integrated with traditional symbolic planners, pointing towards a promising neuro-symbolic approach. This approach effectively combines the generative aspects of LLMs with the precision of classical planning methods. By synthesizing insights from existing literature, we underline the potential of this integration to address complex planning challenges. Our goal is to encourage the ICAPS community to recognize the complementary strengths of LLMs and symbolic planners, advocating for a direction in automated planning that leverages these synergistic capabilities to develop more advanced and intelligent planning systems.
A Wind-Aware Path Planning Method for UAV-Asisted Bridge Inspection
In response to the gap in considering wind conditions in the bridge inspection using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) , this paper proposes a path planning method for UAVs that takes into account the influence of wind, based on the simulated annealing algorithm. The algorithm considers the wind factors, including the influence of different wind speeds and directions at the same time on the path planning of the UAV. Firstly, An environment model is constructed specifically for UAV bridge inspection, taking into account the various objective functions and constraint conditions of UAVs. A more sophisticated and precise mathematical model is then developed based on this environmental model to enable efficient and effective UAV path planning. Secondly, the bridge separation planning model is applied in a novel way, and a series of parameters are simulated, including the adjustment of the initial temperature value. The experimental results demonstrate that, compared with traditional local search algorithms, the proposed method achieves a cost reduction of 30.05\% and significantly improves effectiveness. Compared to path planning methods that do not consider wind factors, the proposed approach yields more realistic and practical results for UAV applications, as demonstrated by its improved effectiveness in simulations. These findings highlight the value of our method in facilitating more accurate and efficient UAV path planning in wind-prone environments.
Learning a Prior for Monte Carlo Search by Replaying Solutions to Combinatorial Problems
Monte Carlo Search gives excellent results in multiple difficult combinatorial problems. Using a prior to perform non uniform playouts during the search improves a lot the results compared to uniform playouts. Handmade heuristics tailored to the combinatorial problem are often used as priors. We propose a method to automatically compute a prior. It uses statistics on solved problems. It is a simple and general method that incurs no computational cost at playout time and that brings large performance gains. The method is applied to three difficult combinatorial problems: Latin Square Completion, Kakuro, and Inverse RNA Folding.
Generalized Nested Rollout Policy Adaptation with Limited Repetitions
Generalized Nested Rollout Policy Adaptation (GNRPA) is a Monte Carlo search algorithm for optimizing a sequence of choices. We propose to improve on GNRPA by avoiding too deterministic policies that find again and again the same sequence of choices. We do so by limiting the number of repetitions of the best sequence found at a given level. Experiments show that it improves the algorithm for three different combinatorial problems: Inverse RNA Folding, the Traveling Salesman Problem with Time Windows and the Weak Schur problem.
Towards providing reliable job completion time predictions using PCS
Faisal, Abdullah Bin, Martin, Noah, Bashir, Hafiz Mohsin, Lamelas, Swaminathan, Dogar, Fahad R.
In this paper we build a case for providing job completion time predictions to cloud users, similar to the delivery date of a package or arrival time of a booked ride. Our analysis reveals that providing predictability can come at the expense of performance and fairness. Existing cloud scheduling systems optimize for extreme points in the trade-off space, making them either extremely unpredictable or impractical. To address this challenge, we present PCS, a new scheduling framework that aims to provide predictability while balancing other traditional objectives. The key idea behind PCS is to use Weighted-Fair-Queueing (WFQ) and find a suitable configuration of different WFQ parameters (e.g., class weights) that meets specific goals for predictability. It uses a simulation-aided search strategy, to efficiently discover WFQ configurations that lie on the Pareto front of the trade-off space between these objectives. We implement and evaluate PCS in the context of DNN job scheduling on GPUs. Our evaluation, on a small scale GPU testbed and larger-scale simulations, shows that PCS can provide accurate completion time estimates while marginally compromising on performance and fairness.
PPNet: A Novel Neural Network Structure for End-to-End Near-Optimal Path Planning
Meng, Qinglong, Xia, Chongkun, Wang, Xueqian, Mai, Songping, Liang, Bin
The classical path planners, such as sampling-based path planners, have the limitations of sensitivity to the initial solution and slow convergence to the optimal solution. However, finding a near-optimal solution in a short period is challenging in many applications such as the autonomous vehicle with limited power/fuel. To achieve an end-to-end near-optimal path planner, we first divide the path planning problem into two subproblems, which are path's space segmentation and waypoints generation in the given path's space. We further propose a two-level cascade neural network named Path Planning Network (PPNet) to solve the path planning problem by solving the abovementioned subproblems. Moreover, we propose a novel efficient data generation method for path planning named EDaGe-PP. The results show the total computation time is less than 1/33 and the success rate of PPNet trained by the dataset that is generated by EDaGe-PP is about $2 \times$ compared to other methods. We validate PPNet against state-of-the-art path planning methods. The results show PPNet can find a near-optimal solution in 15.3ms, which is much shorter than the state-of-the-art path planners.
FIT-SLAM -- Fisher Information and Traversability estimation-based Active SLAM for exploration in 3D environments
Saravanan, Suchetan, Chauffaut, Corentin, Chanel, Caroline, Vivet, Damien
Active visual SLAM finds a wide array of applications in GNSS-Denied sub-terrain environments and outdoor environments for ground robots. To achieve robust localization and mapping accuracy, it is imperative to incorporate the perception considerations in the goal selection and path planning towards the goal during an exploration mission. Through this work, we propose FIT-SLAM (Fisher Information and Traversability estimation-based Active SLAM), a new exploration method tailored for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to explore 3D environments. This approach is devised with the dual objectives of sustaining an efficient exploration rate while optimizing SLAM accuracy. Initially, an estimation of a global traversability map is conducted, which accounts for the environmental constraints pertaining to traversability. Subsequently, we propose a goal candidate selection approach along with a path planning method towards this goal that takes into account the information provided by the landmarks used by the SLAM backend to achieve robust localization and successful path execution . The entire algorithm is tested and evaluated first in a simulated 3D world, followed by a real-world environment and is compared to pre-existing exploration methods. The results obtained during this evaluation demonstrate a significant increase in the exploration rate while effectively minimizing the localization covariance.
Improved Consensus ADMM for Cooperative Motion Planning of Large-Scale Connected Autonomous Vehicles with Limited Communication
Liu, Haichao, Huang, Zhenmin, Zhu, Zicheng, Li, Yulin, Shen, Shaojie, Ma, Jun
This paper investigates a cooperative motion planning problem for large-scale connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) under limited communications, which addresses the challenges of high communication and computing resource requirements. Our proposed methodology incorporates a parallel optimization algorithm with improved consensus ADMM considering a more realistic locally connected topology network, and time complexity of O(N) is achieved by exploiting the sparsity in the dual update process. To further enhance the computational efficiency, we employ a lightweight evolution strategy for the dynamic connectivity graph of CAVs, and each sub-problem split from the consensus ADMM only requires managing a small group of CAVs. The proposed method implemented with the receding horizon scheme is validated thoroughly, and comparisons with existing numerical solvers and approaches demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed algorithm. Also, simulations on large-scale cooperative driving tasks involving 80 vehicles are performed in the high-fidelity CARLA simulator, which highlights the remarkable computational efficiency, scalability, and effectiveness of our proposed development. Demonstration videos are available at https://henryhcliu.github.io/icadmm_cmp_carla.
PINSAT: Parallelized Interleaving of Graph Search and Trajectory Optimization for Kinodynamic Motion Planning
Natarajan, Ramkumar, Mukherjee, Shohin, Choset, Howie, Likhachev, Maxim
Trajectory optimization is a widely used technique in robot motion planning for letting the dynamics and constraints on the system shape and synthesize complex behaviors. Several previous works have shown its benefits in high-dimensional continuous state spaces and under differential constraints. However, long time horizons and planning around obstacles in non-convex spaces pose challenges in guaranteeing convergence or finding optimal solutions. As a result, discrete graph search planners and sampling-based planers are preferred when facing obstacle-cluttered environments. A recently developed algorithm called INSAT effectively combines graph search in the low-dimensional subspace and trajectory optimization in the full-dimensional space for global kinodynamic planning over long horizons. Although INSAT successfully reasoned about and solved complex planning problems, the numerous expensive calls to an optimizer resulted in large planning times, thereby limiting its practical use. Inspired by the recent work on edge-based parallel graph search, we present PINSAT, which introduces systematic parallelization in INSAT to achieve lower planning times and higher success rates, while maintaining significantly lower costs over relevant baselines. We demonstrate PINSAT by evaluating it on 6 DoF kinodynamic manipulation planning with obstacles.