Different from previous methods based on GAN, we present the conditional latent ordinary differential equation (cLODE) to leverage both the generative strength of conditional VAE and the continuous representation of neural ODE. Our network architecture is inspired from the Latent-ODE model. The experiment shows that our method outperform the baseline methods in the simulation of multi-agent driving and is very efficient in term of GPU memory consumption.

Whether it is managing childcare, operating on a patient or cooking a Sunday dinner, there are many occasions when an extra pair of arms would come in, well, handy. Now researchers say such human augmentation could be on the horizon, suggesting additional robotic body parts could be designed to boost our capabilities. Tamar Makin, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the MRC cognition and brain unit at Cambridge University, said the approach could increase productivity. "If you want an extra arm while you're cooking in the kitchen so you can stir the soup while chopping the vegetables, you might have the option to wear and independently control an extra robotic arm," she said. The approach has precedence: Dani Clode, a designer and colleague of Makin's at Cambridge University, has already created a 3D-printed thumb that can be added to any hand.

People equipped with an additional, robotic thumb learned to control it with their toes – but prolonged used may come at a cost of their brains being less certain about how their hands work. Danielle Clode at University College London and her colleagues gave 36 people a prosthetic thumb that wrapped around their wrist and sat underneath their little finger. All were right-handed, and wore the device on their dominant hand. The third thumb's movement was controlled by sensors attached to the user's big toes, and communications were sent using wireless technology affixed at the wrist and ankle. By wiggling each toe, the augmented humans could move the thumb in different directions and clench its grip.

"Now after wearing it on and off for so long, I do feel like it is an extension of my hand," says Dani Clode, a Royal College of Art student who created a "third thumb" as part of her MA dissertation project. "This is a similar kind of feeling to driving, or using a sewing machine. You don't think about putting your foot down after a while, you think about moving forward and your foot just goes down." Completed earlier this summer, the Third Thumb Project consists of a 3D-printed prosthetic thumb, which is attached to the user's hand, while a bracelet receives signals from a bluetooth device that detects movements in the wearer's foot. To operate the thumb, the wearer just has to press down with one of their feet.