Event Details

LIRA Invited Seminar - Prof. Wen-Hua Chen (Loughborough University): Dual Control for Exploration and Exploitation (DECC) with Active Learning

Speaker: Prof. Wen-Hua Chen

Title: Dual Control for Exploration and Exploitation (DECC) with Active Learning

Abstract: Driven by Artificial Intelligence, machine leaning and other data sciences, we now are moving from low levels to high levels of automation. Consequently, autonomous control is required to facilitate real-time decision making and planning to deal with unexpected events and cope with environment uncertainty. Traditional automatic control is not applied anymore. This talk introduces a new control framework: Gaol-Oriented Control Systems (GOCS), for developing autonomous control theory. Departing from the current control theory where how to perform a task is instructed, what the system aims to achieve are specified in terms of high-level goals in GOCS. Dual Control for Exploration and Exploitation (DCEE) is introduced as a mean to implement this framework. DCEE aims to perform certain task defined in terms of a reward function while reducing the associated uncertainty by actively exploring the unknown environment. The conceptual framework is motivated and illustrated by autonomous search of sources of airborne hazardous substance. It is argued that DCEE provides a promising alternative to reinforcement learning for many applications, particularly where the data set is small or expensive.

Brief bio: Dr Wen-Hua Chen holds Professor in Autonomous Vehicles in the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University, UK. Prof. Chen has a considerable experience in control, signal processing and artificial intelligence and their applications in aerospace, automotive and agriculture systems. In the last 15 years, he has been working on the development and application of unmanned aircraft system and intelligent vehicle technologies, spanning autopilots, situational awareness, decision making, verification, remote sensing for precision agriculture and environment monitoring. His unmanned vehicles related research is widely supported by the UK government and industry. He is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of IEEE, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. Recently Prof Chen was awarded the EPSRC Established Career Fellowship in developing new control theory for robotics and autonomous systems.

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