Generative adversarial networks based motion learning towards robotic calligraphy synthesis

Robot calligraphy visually reflects the motion capability of robotic manipulators.While traditional researches mainly focus on image generation and the writing of simple calligraphic strokes or characters,this article presents a generative adversarial network(GAN)-based motion learning method for robotic calligraphy synthesis(Gan2CS)that can enhance the efficiency in writing complex calligraphy words and reproducing classic calligraphy works.The key technologies in the proposed approach include:(1)adopting the GAN to learn the motion parameters from the robot writing operation;(2)converting the learnt motion data into the style font and realising the transition from static calligraphy images to dynamic writing demonstration;(3)reproducing high-precision calligraphy works by synthesising the writing motion data hierarchically.In this study,the motion trajectories of sample calligraphy images are firstly extracted and converted into the robot module.The robot performs the writing with motion planning,and the writing motion parameters of calligraphy strokes are learnt with GANs.Then the motion data of basic strokes is synthesised based on the hierarchical process of‘stroke-radicalpart-character’.And the robot re-writes the synthesised characters whose similarity with the original calligraphy characters is evaluated.Regular calligraphy characters have been tested in the experiments for method validation and the results validated that the robot can actualise the robotic calligraphy synthesis of writing motion data with GAN.

A Bio-Inspired Integration Model of Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum for Motion Learning of a Musculoskeletal Robot

It is a significant research direction for highly complex musculoskeletal robots that how to develop the ability of motion learning and generalization.The cooperations of multiple brain regions are crucial to improving motion performance.Inspired by the neural mechanisms of structures,functions,and interconnections of basal ganglia and cerebellum,a biologically inspired integration model for motor learning of musculoskeletal robots is proposed.Based on the neural characteristics of the basal ganglia,the basal ganglia actor network,which mainly simulates the dorsal striatum,outputs motion commands,and the basal ganglia critic network,which simulates the ventral striatum,estimates actionstate values.Their network parameters are updated using the soft actor-critic method.Based on the sensorimotor prediction mechanism of the cerebellum,the cerebellum network evaluates the state feature extraction quality of the basal ganglia actor network and then updates the weights of its feature layer.This learning method is proven to converge to the optimal policy.Furthermore,drawing on the mechanism of dopaminergic dynamic regulation in the basal ganglia,the adaptive adjustment of target entropy and the dopaminergic experience replay are proposed to further improve the integration model,which contributes to the exploration-exploitation trade-off of motor learning.The bio-inspired integration model is validated on a musculoskeletal system.Experimental results indicate that this model can effectively control the musculoskeletal robot to accomplish the motion task from random starting locations to random target positions with high precision and robustness.

Probabilistic movement primitive based motion learning for a lower limb exoskeleton with black-box optimization

As a wearable robot,an exoskeleton provides a direct transfer of mechanical power to assist or augment the wearer’s movement with an anthropomorphic configuration.When an exoskeleton is used to facilitate the wearer’s movement,a motion generation process often plays an important role in high-level control.One of the main challenges in this area is to generate in real time a reference trajectory that is parallel with human intention and can adapt to different situations.In this paper,we first describe a novel motion modeling method based on probabilistic movement primitive(ProMP)for a lower limb exoskeleton,which is a new and powerful representative tool for generating motion trajectories.To adapt the trajectory to different situations when the exoskeleton is used by different wearers,we propose a novel motion learning scheme based on black-box optimization(BBO)PIBB combined with ProMP.The motion model is first learned by ProMP offline,which can generate reference trajectories for use by exoskeleton controllers online.PIBB is adopted to learn and update the model for online trajectory generation,which provides the capability of adaptation of the system and eliminates the effects of uncertainties.Simulations and experiments involving six subjects using the lower limb exoskeleton HEXO demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.