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Check out our #ICRA2024 paper "Contrastive Initial State Buffer for Reinforcement Learning," which tackles the sample inefficiency in #ReinforcementLearning head-on. Code released! We introduce an approach agnostic to the underlying RL algorithm: the Contrastive Initial State Buffer. This tool strategically selects states from past experiences and uses them to...

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Davide Scaramuzza

18,213 subscribers

13,846 次观看 • 2 年前 •via X (Twitter)

#ICRA2024#ReinforcementLearning
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Stone Tao2 年前

Interesting work! We recently also explored the angle of modifying the initial state distribution but in a learning from demos context: Same outcome: better initial state distribution in sim = far more sample efficient

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We are excited to share that our paper “Low-Latency Event-Based Velocimetry for Quadrotor Control in a Narrow Pipe” published in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics! One year in the making! PDF: Video: We focus on autonomous quadrotor flight in narrow pipes, where self-induced, unsteady airflow can significantly affect stability and control. Our approach closes the loop using real-time flow field measurements: an #EventCamera-based smoke velocimetry method provides low-latency airflow estimates, which are used by a learning-based disturbance estimator and integrated into a reinforcement-learning controller. The results are improved hovering and lateral translation performance, helping make flight in confined spaces more stable and safer! Kudos to Leonard Bauersfeld Leonard Bauersfeld! Reference: Low-Latency Event-Based Velocimetry for Quadrotor Control in a Narrow Pipe, IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2026 European Research Council (ERC) UZH IfI UZH Space Hub University of Zurich Swiss Robotics UZH Science UZHai AUTOASSESS IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) #DVS Prophesee
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We are excited to share that our paper “Low-Latency Event-Based Velocimetry for Quadrotor Control in a Narrow Pipe” published in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics! One year in the making! PDF: Video: We focus on autonomous quadrotor flight in narrow pipes, where self-induced, unsteady airflow can significantly affect stability and control. Our approach closes the loop using real-time flow field measurements: an #EventCamera-based smoke velocimetry method provides low-latency airflow estimates, which are used by a learning-based disturbance estimator and integrated into a reinforcement-learning controller. The results are improved hovering and lateral translation performance, helping make flight in confined spaces more stable and safer! Kudos to Leonard Bauersfeld Leonard Bauersfeld! Reference: Low-Latency Event-Based Velocimetry for Quadrotor Control in a Narrow Pipe, IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2026 European Research Council (ERC) UZH IfI UZH Space Hub University of Zurich Swiss Robotics UZH Science UZHai AUTOASSESS IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) #DVS Prophesee

Davide Scaramuzza

50,112 次观看 • 3 个月前

Check out our latest work, "Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control: Differentiable Optimization meets Reinforcement Learning for Agile Flight," published in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, where we reconcile #OptimalControl and #ReinforcementLearning, achieving the same super-human performance, but with superior generalizability, as our previous model-free deep RL! Code released! PDF: Code: Full Video: Model-free #ReinforcementLearning (RL) is known for its strong task performance and flexibility in optimizing general reward formulations. On the other hand, #ModelPredictiveControl (MPC) provides robustness, constraint handling, and powerful online replanning capabilities. In this work, we extend our previous AC-MPC paper (Romero, ICRA'24) by taking a deeper look at how both approaches can be unified. We introduce and extend Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control (AC-MPC), a framework that embeds a differentiable MPC inside an Actor-Critic RL architecture. This integration allows the MPC-based actor to perform short-term predictive optimization, while the critic facilitates long-horizon learning and exploration. We conduct a comprehensive study that highlights AC-MPC’s key advantages: - Better out-of-distribution generalization, both against unknown disturbances and changes in the quadrotor dynamics - Improved sample efficiency - A novel empirical analysis uncovering a relationship between the critic’s value function and the MPC cost function, providing deeper insight into their interplay. We validate our method in simulation and the real world on a quadcopter flying at superhuman speeds of up to 21 m/s, matching state-of-the-art model-free RL performance, and retaining the predictive structure of MPC for more reliable out-of-distribution behavior. Reference: Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control: Differentiable Optimization meets Reinforcement Learning for Agile Flight IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2025 PDF: Full Video: Code: Kudos to Ángel Romero, Elie Aljalbout, Yunlong Song! University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC) UZHai
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Check out our latest work, "Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control: Differentiable Optimization meets Reinforcement Learning for Agile Flight," published in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, where we reconcile #OptimalControl and #ReinforcementLearning, achieving the same super-human performance, but with superior generalizability, as our previous model-free deep RL! Code released! PDF: Code: Full Video: Model-free #ReinforcementLearning (RL) is known for its strong task performance and flexibility in optimizing general reward formulations. On the other hand, #ModelPredictiveControl (MPC) provides robustness, constraint handling, and powerful online replanning capabilities. In this work, we extend our previous AC-MPC paper (Romero, ICRA'24) by taking a deeper look at how both approaches can be unified. We introduce and extend Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control (AC-MPC), a framework that embeds a differentiable MPC inside an Actor-Critic RL architecture. This integration allows the MPC-based actor to perform short-term predictive optimization, while the critic facilitates long-horizon learning and exploration. We conduct a comprehensive study that highlights AC-MPC’s key advantages: - Better out-of-distribution generalization, both against unknown disturbances and changes in the quadrotor dynamics - Improved sample efficiency - A novel empirical analysis uncovering a relationship between the critic’s value function and the MPC cost function, providing deeper insight into their interplay. We validate our method in simulation and the real world on a quadcopter flying at superhuman speeds of up to 21 m/s, matching state-of-the-art model-free RL performance, and retaining the predictive structure of MPC for more reliable out-of-distribution behavior. Reference: Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control: Differentiable Optimization meets Reinforcement Learning for Agile Flight IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2025 PDF: Full Video: Code: Kudos to Ángel Romero, Elie Aljalbout, Yunlong Song! University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC) UZHai

Davide Scaramuzza

26,960 次观看 • 4 个月前

We are excited to share our #ICRA2026 paper "Dream to Fly: Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Drone Flight"! Paper: Video: Can we use Model-Based #ReinforcementLearning (MBRL) to fly a drone from pixels to commands? In this work, we train quadrotor navigation policies from scratch using #WorldModels, mapping raw onboard camera pixels directly to control commands, much like a human pilot! While model-free methods like PPO are sample-inefficient and struggle in this setting, we leverage #MBRL to train visuomotor policies capable of agile flight through a racetrack using only raw pixel observations, no explicit state estimation needed. A key finding: because our policies are trained end-to-end directly from pixels, we no longer need the perception-aware reward term used in previous methods. Instead, this behavior emerges naturally! The policies learn to guide the camera toward feature-rich areas of the observation space on their own. Kudos to Ángel Romero Ashwin Shenai Ismail Geles Elie Aljalbout Reference: "Dream to Fly: Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Drone Flight" Angel Romero*, Ashwin Shenai*, Ismail Geles, Elie Aljalbout, Davide Scaramuzza IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Vienna, 2026. European Research Council (ERC) AUTOASSESS UZH IfI University of Zurich UZH Science Prophesee SynSense UZH Space Hub Swiss Robotics NCCR Robotics
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We are excited to share our #ICRA2026 paper "Dream to Fly: Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Drone Flight"! Paper: Video: Can we use Model-Based #ReinforcementLearning (MBRL) to fly a drone from pixels to commands? In this work, we train quadrotor navigation policies from scratch using #WorldModels, mapping raw onboard camera pixels directly to control commands, much like a human pilot! While model-free methods like PPO are sample-inefficient and struggle in this setting, we leverage #MBRL to train visuomotor policies capable of agile flight through a racetrack using only raw pixel observations, no explicit state estimation needed. A key finding: because our policies are trained end-to-end directly from pixels, we no longer need the perception-aware reward term used in previous methods. Instead, this behavior emerges naturally! The policies learn to guide the camera toward feature-rich areas of the observation space on their own. Kudos to Ángel Romero Ashwin Shenai Ismail Geles Elie Aljalbout Reference: "Dream to Fly: Model-Based Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Drone Flight" Angel Romero*, Ashwin Shenai*, Ismail Geles, Elie Aljalbout, Davide Scaramuzza IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Vienna, 2026. European Research Council (ERC) AUTOASSESS UZH IfI University of Zurich UZH Science Prophesee SynSense UZH Space Hub Swiss Robotics NCCR Robotics

Davide Scaramuzza

15,775 次观看 • 2 个月前

Check out our #ICRA2024 paper "Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control." Model-free #reinforcementlearning (RL) is known for its strong task performance and flexibility in optimizing general reward formulations. On the other hand, #ModelPredictiveControl (MPC) benefits from robustness and online replanning capabilities. We combine both approaches by introducing a new framework called Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control. The key idea is to embed a differentiable MPC within an Actor-Critic RL framework. The proposed approach leverages the short-term predictive optimization capabilities of MPC with the exploratory and end-to-end training properties of RL. The resulting policy effectively manages both short-term decisions through the MPC-based actor and long-term prediction via the critic network, unifying the benefits of both model-based control and end-to-end learning. We validate our method in simulation and the real world with a quadcopter across various high-level tasks. We show that the proposed architecture can achieve real-time control performance, learn complex behaviors via trial and error, and retain the predictive properties of the MPC to better handle out-of-distribution behavior. Paper: Full Video with more details: Kudos to Ángel Romero, Yunlong Song IEEE ICRA University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub Aerial Core AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC)
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Check out our #ICRA2024 paper "Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control." Model-free #reinforcementlearning (RL) is known for its strong task performance and flexibility in optimizing general reward formulations. On the other hand, #ModelPredictiveControl (MPC) benefits from robustness and online replanning capabilities. We combine both approaches by introducing a new framework called Actor-Critic Model Predictive Control. The key idea is to embed a differentiable MPC within an Actor-Critic RL framework. The proposed approach leverages the short-term predictive optimization capabilities of MPC with the exploratory and end-to-end training properties of RL. The resulting policy effectively manages both short-term decisions through the MPC-based actor and long-term prediction via the critic network, unifying the benefits of both model-based control and end-to-end learning. We validate our method in simulation and the real world with a quadcopter across various high-level tasks. We show that the proposed architecture can achieve real-time control performance, learn complex behaviors via trial and error, and retain the predictive properties of the MPC to better handle out-of-distribution behavior. Paper: Full Video with more details: Kudos to Ángel Romero, Yunlong Song IEEE ICRA University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub Aerial Core AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC)

Davide Scaramuzza

34,874 次观看 • 2 年前

We are excited to share our #CORL2024 paper (oral) on "Learning Quadruped Locomotion Using Differentiable Simulation" done in collaboration with Sangbae Kim Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We present a new way to learn to walk in minutes without parallelization, outperforming PPO in sample efficiency! PDF: Video: We present a new framework for learning quadruped locomotion. By leveraging differentiable simulation for policy optimization, our approach achieves fast convergence and stable training, significantly outperforming model-free #ReinforcementLearning methods like PPO in sample efficiency. The key enabler is to combine a high-fidelity, non-differentiable simulator for forward dynamics with a simplified surrogate model for gradient backpropagation. Our framework enables learning quadruped walking in simulation in minutes without parallelization. When augmented with GPU parallelization, our approach allows the quadruped robot to master diverse locomotion skills on challenging terrains in minutes. This work highlights one of the first successful real-world applications of differentiable simulation for quadruped robots, offering a compelling alternative to traditional RL methods. Kudos to Yunlong Song! UZH Science University of Zurich UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)MechE
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We are excited to share our #CORL2024 paper (oral) on "Learning Quadruped Locomotion Using Differentiable Simulation" done in collaboration with Sangbae Kim Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We present a new way to learn to walk in minutes without parallelization, outperforming PPO in sample efficiency! PDF: Video: We present a new framework for learning quadruped locomotion. By leveraging differentiable simulation for policy optimization, our approach achieves fast convergence and stable training, significantly outperforming model-free #ReinforcementLearning methods like PPO in sample efficiency. The key enabler is to combine a high-fidelity, non-differentiable simulator for forward dynamics with a simplified surrogate model for gradient backpropagation. Our framework enables learning quadruped walking in simulation in minutes without parallelization. When augmented with GPU parallelization, our approach allows the quadruped robot to master diverse locomotion skills on challenging terrains in minutes. This work highlights one of the first successful real-world applications of differentiable simulation for quadruped robots, offering a compelling alternative to traditional RL methods. Kudos to Yunlong Song! UZH Science University of Zurich UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)MechE

Davide Scaramuzza

15,511 次观看 • 1 年前

We are thrilled to share our breakthrough research on "Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimation," to be presented and live-demonstrated at #RSS2024 next week! You heard well: no state estimation means no explicit visual localization, no SLAM, no VIO, and no IMU! Paper: Video (Narrated): Last year, we demonstrated that #ReinforcementLearning (RL) policies could outperform world-champion drone-racing pilots using the same quadrotor hardware; however, unlike human pilots, these policies continuously estimated an explicit state from known gate positions, the camera feed, and inertial measurements (IMU). In this new work, we tackle the challenge of learning vision-based drone racing using an end-to-end reinforcement learning approach that eliminates the need for IMU data or explicit state estimation. Like professional pilots, we go directly from images to control commands. The training is facilitated by an asymmetric actor-critic with access to privileged information. To overcome the computational complexity during image-based RL training, we use an appropriate sensor representation, which can be efficiently simulated during training without rendering images. We achieve agile flight at speeds up to 40 km/h with accelerations up to 2 g's. Although our demonstration focuses on drone racing, we believe that our method has an impact beyond drone racing and can serve as a foundation for future research into real-world applications in structured environments. Besides the paper presentation, we will also give a live demo next Tuesday and Wednesday between and hrs at TU Delft: Reference: Ismail Geles*, Leonard Bauersfeld*, Angel Romero, Jiaxu Xing, Davide Scaramuzza "Demonstrating Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimation" Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2024. Kudos to Ismail Geles Leonard Bauersfeld Ángel Romero Jiaxu Xing! University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub Aerial Core AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC)
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We are thrilled to share our breakthrough research on "Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimation," to be presented and live-demonstrated at #RSS2024 next week! You heard well: no state estimation means no explicit visual localization, no SLAM, no VIO, and no IMU! Paper: Video (Narrated): Last year, we demonstrated that #ReinforcementLearning (RL) policies could outperform world-champion drone-racing pilots using the same quadrotor hardware; however, unlike human pilots, these policies continuously estimated an explicit state from known gate positions, the camera feed, and inertial measurements (IMU). In this new work, we tackle the challenge of learning vision-based drone racing using an end-to-end reinforcement learning approach that eliminates the need for IMU data or explicit state estimation. Like professional pilots, we go directly from images to control commands. The training is facilitated by an asymmetric actor-critic with access to privileged information. To overcome the computational complexity during image-based RL training, we use an appropriate sensor representation, which can be efficiently simulated during training without rendering images. We achieve agile flight at speeds up to 40 km/h with accelerations up to 2 g's. Although our demonstration focuses on drone racing, we believe that our method has an impact beyond drone racing and can serve as a foundation for future research into real-world applications in structured environments. Besides the paper presentation, we will also give a live demo next Tuesday and Wednesday between and hrs at TU Delft: Reference: Ismail Geles*, Leonard Bauersfeld*, Angel Romero, Jiaxu Xing, Davide Scaramuzza "Demonstrating Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimation" Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2024. Kudos to Ismail Geles Leonard Bauersfeld Ángel Romero Jiaxu Xing! University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub Aerial Core AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC)

Davide Scaramuzza

27,891 次观看 • 1 年前

We are excited to share our latest work, "Learning on the Fly: Rapid Policy Adaptation via Differentiable Simulation", where a policy learns to adapt in the real world to unknown disturbances within 5 seconds, both with and without explicit state estimation, directly from visual features. Code released! PDF: Project Page: Starting from a simple analytical dynamics model, the system continuously learns residual dynamics from real-world data and embeds the refined model into a differentiable simulator. This enables fast, gradient-based policy updates that are far more sample-efficient than classical #ReinforcementLearning. We demonstrate rapid adaptation in <5 seconds in agile quadrotor control under challenging conditions, including added payloads, wind disturbances, and large sim-to-real gaps. In real-world experiments, our method reduces hovering error by up to 81% compared to L1-MPC and 55% compared to PPO-based adaptive methods. It also operates directly from visual features without explicit state estimation. Reference: “Learning on the Fly: Rapid Policy Adaptation via Differentiable Simulation” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2026 PDF: Video: Code: Website: Kudos to Michael Pan, Jiaxu Xing, Rudolf Reiter, Yifan Zhai, Elie Aljalbout! UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC) AUTOASSESS UZH Science University of Zurich
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We are excited to share our latest work, "Learning on the Fly: Rapid Policy Adaptation via Differentiable Simulation", where a policy learns to adapt in the real world to unknown disturbances within 5 seconds, both with and without explicit state estimation, directly from visual features. Code released! PDF: Project Page: Starting from a simple analytical dynamics model, the system continuously learns residual dynamics from real-world data and embeds the refined model into a differentiable simulator. This enables fast, gradient-based policy updates that are far more sample-efficient than classical #ReinforcementLearning. We demonstrate rapid adaptation in <5 seconds in agile quadrotor control under challenging conditions, including added payloads, wind disturbances, and large sim-to-real gaps. In real-world experiments, our method reduces hovering error by up to 81% compared to L1-MPC and 55% compared to PPO-based adaptive methods. It also operates directly from visual features without explicit state estimation. Reference: “Learning on the Fly: Rapid Policy Adaptation via Differentiable Simulation” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2026 PDF: Video: Code: Website: Kudos to Michael Pan, Jiaxu Xing, Rudolf Reiter, Yifan Zhai, Elie Aljalbout! UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC) AUTOASSESS UZH Science University of Zurich

Davide Scaramuzza

19,103 次观看 • 5 个月前

Check out our #RSS2024 paper "#MPCC++: Model Predictive Contouring Control for Time-Optimal Flight with Safety Constraints." Model Predictive Contouring Control (MPCC) has shown promising results for agile robotics applications, including car and drone racing. Existing approaches struggle to introduce safety considerations, often resulting in crashes. What does it take to drive or fly fast and safe? We enhance our former MPCC by incorporating spatial constraints that reliably prevent obstacle collisions, allowing planning the fastest trajectory within these safety limits. To improve performance, we leverage real-world data to refine the dynamic model. Our approach is the first to achieve a 100% success rate in real-world experiments. This safety benefit comes without compromising performance, as our method achieves lap times comparable to the best-performing state-based #ReinforcementLearning (RL) policies. Reference M. Krinner, A. Romero, L. Bauersfeld, M. Zeilinger, A. Carron, D. Scaramuzza, "MPCC++: Model Predictive Contouring Control for Time-Optimal Flight with Safety Constraints" Robotics, Science and Systems, 2024 PDF: Video: Kudos to Maria Krinner, Angel Romero Aguilar, Leonard Bauersfeld, Melanie Zeilinger, Andrea Carron! Ángel Romero Leonard Bauersfeld University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC) #MPC #ModelPredictiveControl
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Check out our #RSS2024 paper "#MPCC++: Model Predictive Contouring Control for Time-Optimal Flight with Safety Constraints." Model Predictive Contouring Control (MPCC) has shown promising results for agile robotics applications, including car and drone racing. Existing approaches struggle to introduce safety considerations, often resulting in crashes. What does it take to drive or fly fast and safe? We enhance our former MPCC by incorporating spatial constraints that reliably prevent obstacle collisions, allowing planning the fastest trajectory within these safety limits. To improve performance, we leverage real-world data to refine the dynamic model. Our approach is the first to achieve a 100% success rate in real-world experiments. This safety benefit comes without compromising performance, as our method achieves lap times comparable to the best-performing state-based #ReinforcementLearning (RL) policies. Reference M. Krinner, A. Romero, L. Bauersfeld, M. Zeilinger, A. Carron, D. Scaramuzza, "MPCC++: Model Predictive Contouring Control for Time-Optimal Flight with Safety Constraints" Robotics, Science and Systems, 2024 PDF: Video: Kudos to Maria Krinner, Angel Romero Aguilar, Leonard Bauersfeld, Melanie Zeilinger, Andrea Carron! Ángel Romero Leonard Bauersfeld University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub AUTOASSESS European Research Council (ERC) #MPC #ModelPredictiveControl

Davide Scaramuzza

17,888 次观看 • 1 年前

Can an inexpensive, off-the-shelf IMU be the only sensor to estimate the full state (position, velocity, orientation) of a quadrotor flying through a track at high speed and even be on-pair with vision-based localization? The answer is yes, within certain limitations! In this #RAL2023 paper, we propose a learning-based odometry algorithm that couples a model-based filter driven by the inertial measurements with a learning-based module with access to the control commands. Our system outperforms by a large margin the state-of-the-art visual-inertial odometry (#VIO) algorithms and the state-of-the-art learned-inertial odometry algorithm, #TLIO, for the task of drone racing. Additionally, we show that our system is as accurate as a VIO algorithm that uses a camera to localize to a known map of the racing track. The main limitation of our approach is that it cannot generalize to trajectories that have not been seen at training time. However, in drone racing competitions, the track is known beforehand. Human pilots spend hours or even days of practice on the race track before the competition. Similarly, our system can be trained with the data collected during practice time and deployed during the competition. Future work will investigate how to generalize to trajectories not seen at training time. The code is released! Paper: Video: Code: Kudos to Giovanni Cioffi Leonard Bauersfeld Elia Kaufmann European Research Council (ERC) University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub NCCR Robotics Aerial Core #RAL2023 #IROS2023 #SLAM
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Can an inexpensive, off-the-shelf IMU be the only sensor to estimate the full state (position, velocity, orientation) of a quadrotor flying through a track at high speed and even be on-pair with vision-based localization? The answer is yes, within certain limitations! In this #RAL2023 paper, we propose a learning-based odometry algorithm that couples a model-based filter driven by the inertial measurements with a learning-based module with access to the control commands. Our system outperforms by a large margin the state-of-the-art visual-inertial odometry (#VIO) algorithms and the state-of-the-art learned-inertial odometry algorithm, #TLIO, for the task of drone racing. Additionally, we show that our system is as accurate as a VIO algorithm that uses a camera to localize to a known map of the racing track. The main limitation of our approach is that it cannot generalize to trajectories that have not been seen at training time. However, in drone racing competitions, the track is known beforehand. Human pilots spend hours or even days of practice on the race track before the competition. Similarly, our system can be trained with the data collected during practice time and deployed during the competition. Future work will investigate how to generalize to trajectories not seen at training time. The code is released! Paper: Video: Code: Kudos to Giovanni Cioffi Leonard Bauersfeld Elia Kaufmann European Research Council (ERC) University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub NCCR Robotics Aerial Core #RAL2023 #IROS2023 #SLAM

Davide Scaramuzza

37,049 次观看 • 2 年前

We are excited to share our work “Event-Aided Sharp Radiance Field Reconstruction for Fast-Flying Drones” published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), which tackles sharp radiance field reconstruction under agile drone motion, where RGB frames are heavily motion-blurred and pose priors become unreliable! 4 years in the making! Code & dataset released! PDF: Code & Dataset: Full Narrated Video: High-speed flight is essential for time- and battery-constrained missions (e.g., inspection, exploration, search & rescue). However, fast motion corrupts visual data with severe motion blur and introduces drift/noise in visual-inertial odometry, making NeRF-based 3D reconstruction particularly brittle. We propose a unified framework that leverages asynchronous #EventCamera streams together with motion-blurred frames to reconstruct high-fidelity radiance fields from agile drone flights. Our key idea is to embed event-image fusion directly into radiance field optimization while jointly refining a shared, continuous-time camera trajectory initialized from event-based VIO. This enables us to recover sharp radiance fields and accurate trajectories without ground-truth supervision during training. We validate our method on synthetic data and on real sequences captured by a drone flying up to 2 m/s. Despite severe blur and noisy pose priors, our method preserves fine scene details and achieves a performance gain of over 50% on real-world data compared to state-of-the-art methods. Kudos to Rong Zou and Marco Cannici! Marco Cannici Reference: Rong Zou*, Marco Cannici*, Davide Scaramuzza Event-Aided Sharp Radiance Field Reconstruction for Fast-Flying Drones IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2026 NCCR Robotics European Research Council (ERC) AUTOASSESS UZH IfI University of Zurich UZH Science Prophesee SynSense UZH Space Hub
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We are excited to share our work “Event-Aided Sharp Radiance Field Reconstruction for Fast-Flying Drones” published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), which tackles sharp radiance field reconstruction under agile drone motion, where RGB frames are heavily motion-blurred and pose priors become unreliable! 4 years in the making! Code & dataset released! PDF: Code & Dataset: Full Narrated Video: High-speed flight is essential for time- and battery-constrained missions (e.g., inspection, exploration, search & rescue). However, fast motion corrupts visual data with severe motion blur and introduces drift/noise in visual-inertial odometry, making NeRF-based 3D reconstruction particularly brittle. We propose a unified framework that leverages asynchronous #EventCamera streams together with motion-blurred frames to reconstruct high-fidelity radiance fields from agile drone flights. Our key idea is to embed event-image fusion directly into radiance field optimization while jointly refining a shared, continuous-time camera trajectory initialized from event-based VIO. This enables us to recover sharp radiance fields and accurate trajectories without ground-truth supervision during training. We validate our method on synthetic data and on real sequences captured by a drone flying up to 2 m/s. Despite severe blur and noisy pose priors, our method preserves fine scene details and achieves a performance gain of over 50% on real-world data compared to state-of-the-art methods. Kudos to Rong Zou and Marco Cannici! Marco Cannici Reference: Rong Zou*, Marco Cannici*, Davide Scaramuzza Event-Aided Sharp Radiance Field Reconstruction for Fast-Flying Drones IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2026 NCCR Robotics European Research Council (ERC) AUTOASSESS UZH IfI University of Zurich UZH Science Prophesee SynSense UZH Space Hub

Davide Scaramuzza

10,839 次观看 • 3 个月前

Want to track features in high-speed motion? Check out our #CVPR2023 paper and Award candidate, which introduces the first data-driven feature tracker for #eventcameras Paper, code: Kudos Messikommer Carter Mathias Gehrig
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Want to track features in high-speed motion? Check out our #CVPR2023 paper and Award candidate, which introduces the first data-driven feature tracker for #eventcameras Paper, code: Kudos Messikommer Carter Mathias Gehrig

Davide Scaramuzza

24,013 次观看 • 3 年前

We are excited to be among the very first groups selected by NVIDIA Robotics to test the new NVIDIA #Thor. We have managed to run a #VisionLanguageModel (Qwen 2.5 VL) for semantic understanding of the environment, along with a monocular depth model (#DepthAnything v2), for safe autonomous navigation, all onboard. No cloud, no internet connection required! The video shows a simple result obtained in just two weeks of work. Kudos to Leonard Bauersfeld Jiaxu Xing Ismail Geles Yannick Armati for making this possible! #ComputerVision #Robotics University of Zurich UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC)
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We are excited to be among the very first groups selected by NVIDIA Robotics to test the new NVIDIA #Thor. We have managed to run a #VisionLanguageModel (Qwen 2.5 VL) for semantic understanding of the environment, along with a monocular depth model (#DepthAnything v2), for safe autonomous navigation, all onboard. No cloud, no internet connection required! The video shows a simple result obtained in just two weeks of work. Kudos to Leonard Bauersfeld Jiaxu Xing Ismail Geles Yannick Armati for making this possible! #ComputerVision #Robotics University of Zurich UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC)

Davide Scaramuzza

31,433 次观看 • 9 个月前

Celebrate the future of robotics this #NationalRoboticsWeek 🎉 Congrats to NVIDIA's Shuran Song, Abhishek Gupta, & Yuke Zhu for their 2025 IEEE RAS awards for their contributions to robot learning, reinforcement learning, & #embodiedAI. 📄 Learn more about their papers ➡️
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Celebrate the future of robotics this #NationalRoboticsWeek 🎉 Congrats to NVIDIA's Shuran Song, Abhishek Gupta, & Yuke Zhu for their 2025 IEEE RAS awards for their contributions to robot learning, reinforcement learning, & #embodiedAI. 📄 Learn more about their papers ➡️

NVIDIA Robotics

13,848 次观看 • 1 年前

We are excited to share our latest work, "Superhuman Safe and Agile Racing through Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning," done in collaboration with Google DeepMind . Autonomous drones have reached superhuman speed in isolation, but what happens when multiple agents share the same airspace? Paper: Website: Video: Using league-based self-play, we train #ReinforcementLearning agents that race against a diverse, evolving population of opponents. Through this competitive training, sophisticated behaviors emerge without explicit programming: strategic overtaking, proactive collision avoidance, and even awareness of aerodynamic downwash from nearby drones. In real-world multi-player races at speeds exceeding 80kph (50 mph) and accelerations up to 7g, our agents outperform a five-time Swiss national drone racing champion while reducing collision rates by 50% compared to single-agent baselines. Crucially, training against diverse artificial opponents enables zero-shot generalization to human pilots, achieving over 90% race completion in mixed human-AI races with up to four competitors. A key insight: human pilots adopt riskier strategies when trailing, leading to more crashes under competitive pressure. Our learned policies, by contrast, maintain consistent safety margins regardless of race standing, a property essential for deploying autonomous systems alongside humans. Also, the multi-agent self-play policies are more robust than those trained independently, suggesting that training in competitive environments is not only key to winning races but also to learning safer, more reliable autonomy for real-world multi-robot systems. Kudos to Ismail Geles, Leonard Bauersfeld, Markus Wulfmeier! Ismail Geles Leonard Bauersfeld Markus Wulfmeier European Research Council (ERC) UZH IfI University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub Swiss Robotics NCCR Robotics
1:47

We are excited to share our latest work, "Superhuman Safe and Agile Racing through Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning," done in collaboration with Google DeepMind . Autonomous drones have reached superhuman speed in isolation, but what happens when multiple agents share the same airspace? Paper: Website: Video: Using league-based self-play, we train #ReinforcementLearning agents that race against a diverse, evolving population of opponents. Through this competitive training, sophisticated behaviors emerge without explicit programming: strategic overtaking, proactive collision avoidance, and even awareness of aerodynamic downwash from nearby drones. In real-world multi-player races at speeds exceeding 80kph (50 mph) and accelerations up to 7g, our agents outperform a five-time Swiss national drone racing champion while reducing collision rates by 50% compared to single-agent baselines. Crucially, training against diverse artificial opponents enables zero-shot generalization to human pilots, achieving over 90% race completion in mixed human-AI races with up to four competitors. A key insight: human pilots adopt riskier strategies when trailing, leading to more crashes under competitive pressure. Our learned policies, by contrast, maintain consistent safety margins regardless of race standing, a property essential for deploying autonomous systems alongside humans. Also, the multi-agent self-play policies are more robust than those trained independently, suggesting that training in competitive environments is not only key to winning races but also to learning safer, more reliable autonomy for real-world multi-robot systems. Kudos to Ismail Geles, Leonard Bauersfeld, Markus Wulfmeier! Ismail Geles Leonard Bauersfeld Markus Wulfmeier European Research Council (ERC) UZH IfI University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub Swiss Robotics NCCR Robotics

Davide Scaramuzza

14,315 次观看 • 20 天前

We are excited to share our #CORL2024 paper on learning quadrotor obstacle avoidance from the visual stream of a single #eventcamera! Trained entirely in simulation! We demonstrate obstacle avoidance both in the dark and in a forest up to 5m/s. PDF: Video: Project page: Event cameras are sensors that output per-pixel-level intensity changes at microsecond latency resolution; they feature nearly zero motion blur and high dynamic range but produce a very large volume of events under significant ego-motion and further lack a high-fidelity continuous-time sensor model in simulation, making direct #sim2real transfer not possible. By leveraging depth prediction as a pretext task, we pre-train a reactive obstacle avoidance policy with “approximated” simulated events and then fine-tune the perception component with limited events-and-depth real-world data. This technique bridges the sim2real gap for #eventcameras! As at the current state, there is no continuous-time sensor model for event cameras, we hope that this work can finally spur future research leveraging simulation for training event-vision-based policies to create faster, agile robots! Kudos to Anish Bhattacharya, @marcocannic, Vijay Kumar Nikolai Matni UZH Science University of Zurich UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC) GRASP Laboratory Penn Engineering
1:25

We are excited to share our #CORL2024 paper on learning quadrotor obstacle avoidance from the visual stream of a single #eventcamera! Trained entirely in simulation! We demonstrate obstacle avoidance both in the dark and in a forest up to 5m/s. PDF: Video: Project page: Event cameras are sensors that output per-pixel-level intensity changes at microsecond latency resolution; they feature nearly zero motion blur and high dynamic range but produce a very large volume of events under significant ego-motion and further lack a high-fidelity continuous-time sensor model in simulation, making direct #sim2real transfer not possible. By leveraging depth prediction as a pretext task, we pre-train a reactive obstacle avoidance policy with “approximated” simulated events and then fine-tune the perception component with limited events-and-depth real-world data. This technique bridges the sim2real gap for #eventcameras! As at the current state, there is no continuous-time sensor model for event cameras, we hope that this work can finally spur future research leveraging simulation for training event-vision-based policies to create faster, agile robots! Kudos to Anish Bhattacharya, @marcocannic, Vijay Kumar Nikolai Matni UZH Science University of Zurich UZH Space Hub UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC) GRASP Laboratory Penn Engineering

Davide Scaramuzza

17,163 次观看 • 1 年前

Our work, "A Primer on SO(3) Action Representations in Deep Reinforcement Learning," was accepted to #ICLR2026! We provide a systematic study of action representation choices in RL, showing that they fundamentally impact training stability and performance. #Robotics #AI #RL
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Our work, "A Primer on SO(3) Action Representations in Deep Reinforcement Learning," was accepted to #ICLR2026! We provide a systematic study of action representation choices in RL, showing that they fundamentally impact training stability and performance. #Robotics #AI #RL

Learning Systems and Robotics Lab (is hiring!)

49,596 次观看 • 3 个月前

Big emotion to receive the IEEE RAS #Pioneer #Award in #Robotics and #Automation today at the IEEE ICRA here in #Yokohama 🇯🇵🎡☂️ Napoli Rules 🦾💙🤩🫶 #keepthegradient
1:02

Big emotion to receive the IEEE RAS #Pioneer #Award in #Robotics and #Automation today at the IEEE ICRA here in #Yokohama 🇯🇵🎡☂️ Napoli Rules 🦾💙🤩🫶 #keepthegradient

Bruno Siciliano

26,124 次观看 • 2 年前

The teaser video for our latest Science Robotics paper. Full video will be out soon. Paper: Attention-based map encoding for learning generalized legged locomotion Link:
0:54

The teaser video for our latest Science Robotics paper. Full video will be out soon. Paper: Attention-based map encoding for learning generalized legged locomotion Link:

Junzhe (JJ) He

13,162 次观看 • 9 个月前

Last Sunday, we competed in the Vision Assistance Race at the CYBATHLON 2024—the "cyber Olympics" designed to push the boundaries of assistive technology. In this race, our system guided a blind participant through everyday tasks such as walking along a sidewalk, sorting colors, ordering from a touchscreen, purchasing a box of tea, and navigating a forest—all powered by computer vision assistance! We used two RGB cameras and a depth camera for localization, 3D mapping, and semantic understanding and a belt for haptic feedback. Our system received the Jury Award for the most innovative and user-friendly solution! Congratulations to our amazing team: Cornelius von Einem, Patrick Pfreundschuh, Giovanni Cioffi, Alexander Wyss, Roland Siegwart, Hans Wernher van de Venn, Alireza Darvishy, and especially to our pilot, Lukas Hendry! A big thank you to all our Master's students who contributed to this achievement, including Victoria Catalán Pastor and Tim Flueckiger! University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub ETH Zurich Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zürich ZHAW UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC)
1:26

Last Sunday, we competed in the Vision Assistance Race at the CYBATHLON 2024—the "cyber Olympics" designed to push the boundaries of assistive technology. In this race, our system guided a blind participant through everyday tasks such as walking along a sidewalk, sorting colors, ordering from a touchscreen, purchasing a box of tea, and navigating a forest—all powered by computer vision assistance! We used two RGB cameras and a depth camera for localization, 3D mapping, and semantic understanding and a belt for haptic feedback. Our system received the Jury Award for the most innovative and user-friendly solution! Congratulations to our amazing team: Cornelius von Einem, Patrick Pfreundschuh, Giovanni Cioffi, Alexander Wyss, Roland Siegwart, Hans Wernher van de Venn, Alireza Darvishy, and especially to our pilot, Lukas Hendry! A big thank you to all our Master's students who contributed to this achievement, including Victoria Catalán Pastor and Tim Flueckiger! University of Zurich UZH Science UZH Space Hub ETH Zurich Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zürich ZHAW UZH IfI European Research Council (ERC)

Davide Scaramuzza

16,510 次观看 • 1 年前

Today, we're joined by Nikita Rudin, co-founder and CEO of Flexion Robotics to discuss the gap between current robotic capabilities and what’s required to deploy fully autonomous robots in the real world. Nikita explains how reinforcement learning and simulation have driven rapid progress in robot locomotion—and why locomotion is still far from “solved.” We dig into the sim2real gap, and how adding visual inputs introduces noise and significantly complicates sim-to-real transfer. We also explore the debate between end-to-end models and modular approaches, and why separating locomotion, planning, and semantics remains a pragmatic approach today. Nikita also introduces the concept of "real-to-sim", which uses real-world data to refine simulation parameters for higher fidelity training, discusses how reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and teleoperation data are combined to train robust policies for both quadruped and humanoid robots, and introduces Flexion's hierarchical approach that utilizes pre-trained Vision-Language Models (VLMs) for high-level task orchestration with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and low-level whole-body trackers. Finally, Nikita shares the behind-the-scenes in humanoid robot demos, his take on reinforcement learning in simulation versus the real world, the nuances of reward tuning, and offers practical advice for researchers and practitioners looking to get started in robotics today. 🗒️ For the full list of resources for this episode, visit the show notes page: 📖 CHAPTERS =============================== 00:00 - Introduction 04:07 - Is robot locomotion solved? 06:04 - Sim-to-real gap 08:58 - Adding semantics to policies 09:42 - Modular vs end-to-end architectures 10:29 - Planner model 12:21 - Adapting RL techniques from quadrupeds to humanoids 15:39 - Behind robot demos 18:09 - Humanoid robots in home environments 22:03 - Training approach 23:56 - VLA models 27:59 - Closing the sim-to-real gap 32:55 - Task orchestration using VLMs 36:38 - Tool use 38:10 - Model hierarchy 43:37 - Simulator versus simulation environment 44:57 - Combining imitation learning and reinforcement learning 46:42 - RL in real world versus RL in simulation 52:58 - Reward tuning and value functions in robotics 56:38 - Predictions 1:00:10 - Humanoids, quadropeds, and wheeled platforms 1:02:45 - Advice, recommended robot kits, and community pla
1:06:07

Today, we're joined by Nikita Rudin, co-founder and CEO of Flexion Robotics to discuss the gap between current robotic capabilities and what’s required to deploy fully autonomous robots in the real world. Nikita explains how reinforcement learning and simulation have driven rapid progress in robot locomotion—and why locomotion is still far from “solved.” We dig into the sim2real gap, and how adding visual inputs introduces noise and significantly complicates sim-to-real transfer. We also explore the debate between end-to-end models and modular approaches, and why separating locomotion, planning, and semantics remains a pragmatic approach today. Nikita also introduces the concept of "real-to-sim", which uses real-world data to refine simulation parameters for higher fidelity training, discusses how reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and teleoperation data are combined to train robust policies for both quadruped and humanoid robots, and introduces Flexion's hierarchical approach that utilizes pre-trained Vision-Language Models (VLMs) for high-level task orchestration with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models and low-level whole-body trackers. Finally, Nikita shares the behind-the-scenes in humanoid robot demos, his take on reinforcement learning in simulation versus the real world, the nuances of reward tuning, and offers practical advice for researchers and practitioners looking to get started in robotics today. 🗒️ For the full list of resources for this episode, visit the show notes page: 📖 CHAPTERS =============================== 00:00 - Introduction 04:07 - Is robot locomotion solved? 06:04 - Sim-to-real gap 08:58 - Adding semantics to policies 09:42 - Modular vs end-to-end architectures 10:29 - Planner model 12:21 - Adapting RL techniques from quadrupeds to humanoids 15:39 - Behind robot demos 18:09 - Humanoid robots in home environments 22:03 - Training approach 23:56 - VLA models 27:59 - Closing the sim-to-real gap 32:55 - Task orchestration using VLMs 36:38 - Tool use 38:10 - Model hierarchy 43:37 - Simulator versus simulation environment 44:57 - Combining imitation learning and reinforcement learning 46:42 - RL in real world versus RL in simulation 52:58 - Reward tuning and value functions in robotics 56:38 - Predictions 1:00:10 - Humanoids, quadropeds, and wheeled platforms 1:02:45 - Advice, recommended robot kits, and community pla

The TWIML AI Podcast

22,264 次观看 • 5 个月前