In this paper, we present Roamify, an Artificial Intelligence powered travel assistant that aims to ease the process of travel planning. We have tested and used multiple Large Language Models like Llama and T5 to generate personalised itineraries per user preferences. Results from user surveys highlight the preference for AI powered mediums over existing methods to help in travel planning across all user age groups. These results firmly validate the potential need of such a travel assistant. We highlight the two primary design considerations for travel assistance: D1) incorporating a web-scraping method to gather up-to-date news articles about destinations from various blog sources, which significantly improves our itinerary suggestions, and D2) utilising user preferences to create customised travel experiences along with a recommendation system which changes the itinerary according to the user needs. Our findings suggest that Roamify has the potential to improve and simplify how users across multiple age groups plan their travel experiences.

We consider nonconvex obstacle avoidance where a robot described by nonlinear dynamics and a nonconvex shape has to avoid nonconvex obstacles. Obstacle avoidance is a fundamental problem in robotics and well studied in control. However, existing solutions are computationally expensive (e.g., model predictive controllers), neglect nonlinear dynamics (e.g., graph-based planners), use diffeomorphic transformations into convex domains (e.g., for star shapes), or are conservative due to convex overapproximations. The key challenge here is that the computation of the distance between the shapes of the robot and the obstacles is a nonconvex problem. We propose efficient computation of this distance via sampling-based distance functions. We quantify the sampling error and show that, for certain systems, such sampling-based distance functions are valid nonsmooth control barrier functions. We also study how to deal with disturbances on the robot dynamics in our setting. Finally, we illustrate our method on a robot navigation task involving an omnidirectional robot and nonconvex obstacles. We also analyze performance and computational efficiency of our controller as a function of the number of samples.

Motion planning for aerial manipulators in constrained environments has typically been limited to known environments or simplified to that of multi-rotors, which leads to poor adaptability and overly conservative trajectories. This paper presents RINGO: Real-time Navigation with a Guiding Trajectory, a novel planning framework that enables aerial manipulators to navigate unknown environments in real time. The proposed method simultaneously considers the positions of both the multi-rotor and the end-effector. A pre-obtained multi-rotor trajectory serves as a guiding reference, allowing the end-effector to generate a smooth, collision-free, and workspace-compatible trajectory. Leveraging the convex hull property of B-spline curves, we theoretically guarantee that the trajectory remains within the reachable workspace. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that enables real-time navigation of aerial manipulators in unknown environments. The simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method generates less conservative trajectories than approaches that consider only the multi-rotor.

AlphaZero in 2017 was able to master chess and other games without human knowledge by playing millions of games against itself (self-play), with a computation budget running in the tens of millions of dollars. It used a variant of the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm, known as PUCT. This paper introduces search-contempt, a novel hybrid variant of the MCTS algorithm that fundamentally alters the distribution of positions generated in self-play, preferring more challenging positions. In addition, search-contempt has been shown to give a big boost in strength for engines in Odds Chess (where one side receives an unfavorable position from the start). More significantly, it opens up the possibility of training a self-play based engine, in a much more computationally efficient manner with the number of training games running into hundreds of thousands, costing tens of thousands of dollars (instead of tens of millions of training games costing millions of dollars required by AlphaZero). This means that it may finally be possible to train such a program from zero on a standard consumer GPU even with a very limited compute, cost, or time budget.

Financial instability has become a significant issue in today's society. While research typically focuses on financial aspects, there is a tendency to overlook time-related aspects of unstable work schedules. The inability to rely on consistent work schedules leads to burnout, work-family conflicts, and financial shocks that directly impact workers' income and assets. Unforeseen fluctuations in earnings pose challenges in financial planning, affecting decisions on savings and spending and ultimately undermining individuals' long-term financial stability and well-being. This issue is particularly evident in sectors where workers experience frequently changing schedules without sufficient notice, including those in the food service and retail sectors, part-time and hourly workers, and individuals with lower incomes. These groups are already more financially vulnerable, and the unpredictable nature of their schedules exacerbates their financial fragility. Our objective is to understand how unforeseen fluctuations in earnings exacerbate financial fragility by investigating the extent to which individuals' financial management depends on their ability to anticipate and plan for the future. To address this question, we develop a simulation framework that models how individuals optimize utility amidst financial uncertainty and the imperative to avoid financial ruin. We employ online learning techniques, specifically adapting workers' consumption policies based on evolving information about their work schedules. With this framework, we show both theoretically and empirically how a worker's capacity to anticipate schedule changes enhances their long-term utility. Conversely, the inability to predict future events can worsen workers' instability. Moreover, our framework enables us to explore interventions to mitigate the problem of schedule uncertainty and evaluate their effectiveness.

TOCALib: Optimal control library with interpolation for bimanual manipulation and obstacles avoidance Y ulia Danik 1, Dmitry Makarov 2, Aleksandra Arkhipova 3, Sergei Davidenko 4 and Aleksandr Panov 5 Abstract -- The paper presents a new approach for constructing a library of optimal trajectories for two robotic manipulators, Two-Arm Optimal Control and A voidance Library (TOCALib) 1 . The optimisation takes into account kinodynamic and other constraints within the FROST framework. The novelty of the method lies in the consideration of collisions using the DCOL method, which allows obtaining symbolic expressions for assessing the presence of collisions and using them in gradient-based optimization control methods. The proposed approach allowed the implementation of complex bimanual manipulations. In this paper we used Mobile Aloha as an example of TOCALib application. The approach can be extended to other bimanual robots, as well as to gait control of bipedal robots. It can also be used to construct training data for machine learning tasks for manipulation.

Keywords: scheduling, RCPSP, bottlenecks, constraint relaxation Abstract: In realistic production scenarios, Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) tools often require manual intervention by production planners, as the system works with incomplete information, resulting in suboptimal schedules. Often, the preferable solution is not found just because of the too-restrictive constraints specifying the optimization problem, representing bottlenecks in the schedule. To provide computer-assisted support for decision-making, we aim to automatically identify bottlenecks in the given schedule while linking them to the particular constraints to be relaxed. In this work, we address the problem of reducing the tardiness of a particular project in an obtained schedule in the resource-constrained project scheduling problem by relaxing constraints related to identified bottlenecks. We develop two methods for this purpose. The second method identifies potential improvements in relaxed versions of the problem and proposes targeted relaxations. Surprisingly, the untargeted relaxations result in improvements comparable to the targeted relaxations. 1 INTRODUCTION In the modern manufacturing industry, Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) tools are used to schedule production automatically. However, not all parameters and information are available to the APS systems in practice.

Producing robust task plans in human-robot collaborative missions is a critical activity in order to increase the likelihood of these missions completing successfully. Despite the broad research body in the area, which considers different classes of constraints and uncertainties, its applicability is confined to relatively simple problems that can be comfortably addressed by the underpinning mathematically-based or heuristic-driven solver engines. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid approach that effectively solves the task planning problem by decomposing it into two intertwined parts, starting with the identification of a feasible plan and followed by its uncertainty augmentation and verification yielding a set of Pareto optimal plans. To enhance its robustness, adaptation tactics are devised for the evolving system requirements and agents' capabilities. We demonstrate our approach through an industrial case study involving workers and robots undertaking activities within a vineyard, showcasing the benefits of our hybrid approach both in the generation of feasible solutions and scalability compared to native planners.

Efficient scheduling remains a critical challenge in various domains, requiring solutions to complex NP-hard optimization problems to achieve optimal resource allocation and maximize productivity. In this paper, we introduce a framework called Transformer-Based Task Scheduling System (TRATSS), designed to address the intricacies of single agent scheduling in graph-based environments. By integrating the latest advancements in reinforcement learning and transformer architecture, TRATSS provides a novel system that outputs optimized task scheduling decisions while dynamically adapting to evolving task requirements and resource availability. Leveraging the self-attention mechanism in transformers, TRATSS effectively captures complex task dependencies, thereby providing solutions with enhanced resource utilization and task completion efficiency. Experimental evaluations on benchmark datasets demonstrate TRATSS's effectiveness in providing high-quality solutions to scheduling problems that involve multiple action profiles.

With the rapid development of the logistics industry, the path planning of logistics vehicles has become increasingly complex, requiring consideration of multiple constraints such as time windows, task sequencing, and motion smoothness. Traditional path planning methods often struggle to balance these competing demands efficiently. In this paper, we propose a path planning technique based on the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to address these challenges. The proposed method optimizes key performance metrics, including path length, task completion time, turning counts, and motion smoothness, to ensure efficient and practical route planning for logistics vehicles. Experimental results demonstrate that the ACO-based approach outperforms traditional methods in terms of both efficiency and adaptability. This study provides a robust solution for logistics vehicle path planning, offering significant potential for real-world applications in dynamic and constrained environments.