GPN: Generative Point-based NeRF

Scanning real-life scenes with modern registration devices typically gives incomplete point cloud representations, primarily due to the limitations of partial scanning, 3D occlusions, and dynamic light conditions. Recent works on processing incomplete point clouds have always focused on point cloud completion. However, these approaches do not ensure consistency between the completed point cloud and the captured images regarding color and geometry. We propose using Generative Point-based NeRF (GPN) to reconstruct and repair a partial cloud by fully utilizing the scanning images and the corresponding reconstructed cloud. The repaired point cloud can achieve multi-view consistency with the captured images at high spatial resolution. For the finetunes of a single scene, we optimize the global latent condition by incorporating an Auto-Decoder architecture while retaining multi-view consistency. As a result, the generated point clouds are smooth, plausible, and geometrically consistent with the partial scanning images. Extensive experiments on ShapeNet demonstrate that our works achieve competitive performances to the other state-of-the-art point cloud-based neural scene rendering and editing performances.

A Majority Invariant Approach to Patch Robustness Certification for Deep Learning Models

Patch robustness certification ensures no patch within a given bound on a sample can manipulate a deep learning model to predict a different label. However, existing techniques cannot certify samples that cannot meet their strict bars at the classifier or patch region levels. This paper proposes MajorCert. MajorCert firstly finds all possible label sets manipulatable by the same patch region on the same sample across the underlying classifiers, then enumerates their combinations element-wise, and finally checks whether the majority invariant of all these combinations is intact to certify samples.

Copebot: Underwater soft robot with copepod-like locomotion

It has been a great challenge to develop robots that are able to perform complex movement patterns with high speed and, simultaneously, high accuracy. Copepods are animals found in freshwater and saltwater habitats that can have extremely fast escape responses when a predator is sensed by performing explosive curved jumps. Here, we present a design and build prototypes of a combustion-driven underwater soft robot, the "copebot", that, like copepods, is able to accurately reach nearby predefined locations in space within a single curved jump. Because of an improved thrust force transmission unit, causing a large initial acceleration peak (850 Bodylength*s-2), the copebot is 8 times faster than previous combustion-driven underwater soft robots, whilst able to perform a complete 360{\deg} rotation during the jump. Thrusts generated by the copebot are tested to quantitatively determine the actuation performance, and parametric studies are conducted to investigate the sensitivities of the input parameters to the kinematic performance of the copebot. We demonstrate the utility of our design by building a prototype that rapidly jumps out of the water, accurately lands on its feet on a small platform, wirelessly transmits data, and jumps back into the water. Our copebot design opens the way toward high-performance biomimetic robots for multifunctional applications.

Energy-Delay Minimization of Task Migration Based on Game Theory in MEC-assisted Vehicular Networks

Roadside units (RSUs), which have strong computing capability and are close to vehicle nodes, have been widely used to process delay- and computation-intensive tasks of vehicle nodes. However, due to their high mobility, vehicles may drive out of the coverage of RSUs before receiving the task processing results. In this paper, we propose a mobile edge computing-assisted vehicular network, where vehicles can offload their tasks to a nearby vehicle via a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) link or a nearby RSU via a vehicle-to-infrastructure link. These tasks are also migrated by a V2V link or an infrastructure-to-infrastructure (I2I) link to avoid the scenario where the vehicles cannot receive the processed task from the RSUs. Considering mutual interference from the same link of offloading tasks and migrating tasks, we construct a vehicle offloading decision-based game to minimize the computation overhead. We prove that the game can always achieve Nash equilibrium and convergence by exploiting the finite improvement property. We then propose a task migration (TM) algorithm that includes three task-processing methods and two task-migration methods. Based on the TM algorithm, computation overhead minimization offloading (COMO) algorithm is presented. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed TM and COMO algorithms reduce the computation overhead and increase the success rate of task processing.