Christopher Nielsen

Philip James McCarthy, Christopher Nielsen

We present a smooth distributed nonlinear control law for local synchronization of identical driftless kinematic agents on a Cartesian product of matrix Lie groups with a connected communication graph. If the agents are initialized sufficiently close to one another, then synchronization is achieved exponentially fast. We first analyze the special case of commutative Lie groups and show that in exponential coordinates, the closed-loop dynamics are linear. We characterize all equilibria of the network and, in the case of an unweighted, complete graph, characterize the settling time and conditions for deadbeat performance. Using the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff theorem, we show that, in a neighbourhood of the identity element, all results generalize to arbitrary matrix Lie groups.

Rachid Zeghlache, Ikram Brahim, Pierre-Henri Conze et al.

The MARIO challenge, held at MICCAI 2024, focused on advancing the automated detection and monitoring of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) through the analysis of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images. Designed to evaluate algorithmic performance in detecting neovascular activity changes within AMD, the challenge incorporated unique multi-modal datasets. The primary dataset, sourced from Brest, France, was used by participating teams to train and test their models. The final ranking was determined based on performance on this dataset. An auxiliary dataset from Algeria was used post-challenge to evaluate population and device shifts from submitted solutions. Two tasks were involved in the MARIO challenge. The first one was the classification of evolution between two consecutive 2D OCT B-scans. The second one was the prediction of future AMD evolution over three months for patients undergoing anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy. Thirty-five teams participated, with the top 12 finalists presenting their methods. This paper outlines the challenge's structure, tasks, data characteristics, and winning methodologies, setting a benchmark for AMD monitoring using OCT, infrared imaging, and clinical data (such as the number of visits, age, gender, etc.). The results of this challenge indicate that artificial intelligence (AI) performs as well as a physician in measuring AMD progression (Task 1) but is not yet able of predicting future evolution (Task 2).

Rajan Gill, Dana Kulić, Christopher Nielsen

Path following controllers make the output of a control system approach and traverse a pre-specified path with no apriori time parametrization. In this paper we present a method for path following control design applicable to framed curves generated by splines in the workspace of kinematically redundant mechanical systems. The class of admissible paths includes self-intersecting curves. Kinematic redundancies are resolved by designing controllers that solve a suitably defined constrained quadratic optimization problem. By employing partial feedback linearization, the proposed path following controllers have a clear physical meaning. The approach is experimentally verified on a 4-degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) manipulator with a combination of revolute and linear actuated links and significant model uncertainty.