Tootfinder

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01046 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csRO_…

STATE-NAV: Stability-Aware Traversability Estimation for Bipedal Navigation on Rough Terrain
Bipedal robots have advantages in maneuvering human-centered environments, but face greater failure risk compared to other stable mobile plarforms such as wheeled or quadrupedal robots. While learning-based traversability has been widely studied for these platforms, bipedal traversability has instead relied on manually designed rules with limited consideration of locomotion stability on rough terrain. In this work, we present the first learning-based traversability estimation and risk-sensitive…

Weekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
While less discussed, there is a similar circulation to the AMOC in the #Antarctic called the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC). This is also vital to deep circulation, algal productivity, ecosystem function, and the global

Yesterday I finally wrote the blog post for the bike and hike recently.
For me it was pretty tough as it was constant incline of around 1000m over around 12km with just one short exception.
The view here is from the summit down to the "plain" where we left the bikes for the final climb.
The blog: https://w…

#ToutTerrain haben einfach mal eine Schalthebellösung für #Pinion 😍
Kostet happig, aber das ist auch echt ein Vorteil.

TT Shift:R Trigger für Pinion

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.09833 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csRO_…

Learning Rock Pushability on Rough Planetary Terrain
In the context of mobile navigation in unstructured environments, the predominant approach entails the avoidance of obstacles. The prevailing path planning algorithms are contingent upon deviating from the intended path for an indefinite duration and returning to the closest point on the route after the obstacle is left behind spatially. However, avoiding an obstacle on a path that will be used repeatedly by multiple agents can hinder long-term efficiency and lead to a lasting reliance on an ac…

It is only a matter of time until noem, homan, dhs, ice and potus realize dropping people out of aircraft is cheaper than housing or moving them.
Unless they already have.
Rumors are the US is engaging in death flights. Already there are some known flight paths of ice flights turning around over bodies of water.
The US Congress and international community seem to be the only things that can stop this.

Why forests aren't coming back after gold mining in the Amazon #Amazon

Why forests aren't coming back after gold mining in the Amazon
Forests in the Peruvian Amazon aren't growing back after gold mining—not just because the soil is damaged by toxic metals, but because the land has been depleted of its water. A common mining method known as suction mining reshapes the terrain in ways that drain moisture and trap heat, creating harsh conditions where even replanted seedlings can't survive.

Measurements and Modeling of Air-Ground Integrated Channel in Forest Environment Based on OFDM Signals
Zhe Xiao, Shu Sun, Na Liu, Lianming Xu, Li Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02303

Measurements and Modeling of Air-Ground Integrated Channel in Forest Environment Based on OFDM Signals
Forests are frequently impacted by climate conditions, vegetation density, and intricate terrain and geology, which contribute to natural disasters. Personnel engaged in or supporting rescue operations in such environments rely on robust communication systems to ensure their safety, highlighting the criticality of channel measurements in forest environments. However, according to current research, there is limited research on channel detection and modeling in forest areas in the existing litera…

High-speed control and navigation for quadrupedal robots on complex and discrete terrain
Hyeongjun Kim, Hyunsik Oh, Jeongsoo Park, Yunho Kim, Donghoon Youm, Moonkyu Jung, Minho Lee, Jemin Hwangbo
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02835

High-speed control and navigation for quadrupedal robots on complex and discrete terrain
High-speed legged navigation in discrete and geometrically complex environments is a challenging task because of the high-degree-of-freedom dynamics and long-horizon, nonconvex nature of the optimization problem. In this work, we propose a hierarchical navigation pipeline for legged robots that can traverse such environments at high speed. The proposed pipeline consists of a planner and tracker module. The planner module finds physically feasible foothold plans by sampling-based optimization wi…

Les #RAP2025 c'est fini... C'était vraiment chouette. Place au traditionnel blues. Dix heures de route nous attendent, et au bout peut-être une aurore boréale 🤞
À l'année prochaine pour les #RAP2026 !
#StarParty

Au Québec aussi: "déjŠ interdit en classe depuis l'an dernier, le cellulaire devra bientôt être rangé dans les casiers jusqu’Š la fin des cours."
#enseignement

Natura Urbana IX 🏡
城市自然 IX 🏡
📷 Nikon FE
🎞️Ilford FP4 Plus, expired 1995
buy me ☕️ ?/请我喝杯☕️？
#filmphotography

Yiding Cao Geld mit PayPal.Me senden
Folgen Sie dem Link PayPal.Me/dingsterdingster und geben Sie den Betrag ein. Es ist bequem und sicher. Sie haben noch kein PayPal-Konto? Kein Problem.

A modular and extensible library for parameterized terrain generation
Erik Wallin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.19751 https://arxiv.org/…

A modular and extensible library for parameterized terrain generation
Simulation-driven development of intelligent machines benefits from artificial terrains with controllable, well-defined characteristics. However, most existing tools for terrain generation focus on artist-driven workflows and visual realism, with limited support for parameterization, reproducibility, or scripting. We present a modular, Python-based library for procedural terrain generation that enables users to construct complex, parameterized terrains by chaining together simple modules. The s…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.17469 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csRO_…

VertiSelector: Automatic Curriculum Learning for Wheeled Mobility on Vertically Challenging Terrain
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has the potential to enable extreme off-road mobility by circumventing complex kinodynamic modeling, planning, and control by simulated end-to-end trial-and-error learning experiences. However, most RL methods are sample-inefficient when training in a large amount of manually designed simulation environments and struggle at generalizing to the real world. To address these issues, we introduce VertiSelector (VS), an automatic curriculum learning framework designed to …

Series A, Episode 04 - Time Squad
CALLY: [Telepaths] How did you get here?
BLAKE: We came from.... [looks quickly to the side].
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/104/344 B7B4

Blakes7Bot | Search
Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

Fact Checking Le Temps: Les déclarations d’Ignazio Cassis sur les responsabilités et l’aide humanitaire sont contredites par les observations des acteurs sur le terrain.
https://www.letemps.ch/monde/moyenorient/les-declarations-d-ignazio-cassis-a-l-epreuve-des-faits

I finally finished the blogpost including some new photos and a short video (!!) from my hike last Saturday.
To me it was a really really gorgeous day!
Read the story here: https://www.franzgraf.de/blog/2025/getting-up-early-for-the-mountains/
(a…

Small area estimation of growing stock timber volume, basal area, mean stem diameter, and stem density for mountain forests in Austria
Arne Nothdurft, Valentin Sarkleti, Tobias Ofner-Graff, Andreas Tockner, Christoph Gollob, Tim Ritter, Ralf Kra{\ss}nitzer, Philip Svazek, Martin K\"uhmaier, Karl Stampfer, Andrew O. Finley
https://

Small area estimation of growing stock timber volume, basal area, mean stem diameter, and stem density for mountain forests in Austria
Regression models were evaluated to estimate stand-level growing stock volume (GSV), quadratic mean diameter (QMD), basal area (BA), and stem density (N) in the Brixen im Thale forest district of Austria. Field measurements for GSV, QMD, and BA were collected on 146 inventory plots using a handheld mobile personal laser scanning system. Predictor variables were derived from airborne laser scanning (ALS)-derived normalized digital surface and terrain models. The objective was to generate stand-l…

STATE-NAV: Stability-Aware Traversability Estimation for Bipedal Navigation on Rough Terrain
Ziwon Yoon, Lawrence Y. Zhu, Lu Gan, Ye Zhao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01046

STATE-NAV: Stability-Aware Traversability Estimation for Bipedal Navigation on Rough Terrain
Bipedal robots have advantages in maneuvering human-centered environments, but face greater failure risk compared to other stable mobile plarforms such as wheeled or quadrupedal robots. While learning-based traversability has been widely studied for these platforms, bipedal traversability has instead relied on manually designed rules with limited consideration of locomotion stability on rough terrain. In this work, we present the first learning-based traversability estimation and risk-sensitive…

#PhantastikPrompts 29.06.:
Hast du Vorbilder beim Schreiben?
Da ich ziemlich neues Terrain betrete: Nein. Es existieren ja schlicht keine Leute, die auf Deutsch vor mir das Gleiche gemacht haben. Ähnliches, ja. Ich sehe mein Genre wie ein Hexagon mit verschiedenen Terrains - einem Berg, einem Fluss, einem Wald, einer Stadt... und ich kann mein Plättchen zwar so anlegen, das…

Hello les gens! @… et moi, on est très tentés de créer une ou plusieurs #mare sur notre terrain. Un peu moins de 6000m² de terrain en pente orienté nord, 1/4 sous-bois, 3/4 champ, pas de source ou ruisseau, en centre Bretagne (entre Pontivy et Guéméné-sur-Scorff). On est prene…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24198 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csRO_…

Learning Gentle Humanoid Locomotion and End-Effector Stabilization Control
Can your humanoid walk up and hand you a full cup of beer, without spilling a drop? While humanoids are increasingly featured in flashy demos like dancing, delivering packages, traversing rough terrain, fine-grained control during locomotion remains a significant challenge. In particular, stabilizing a filled end-effector (EE) while walking is far from solved, due to a fundamental mismatch in task dynamics: locomotion demands slow-timescale, robust control, whereas EE stabilization requires rap…

Après la pluie vient le beau temps... Dernier soir. #RAP2025 #StarParty #Astrodon

Enhancing eLoran Timing Accuracy via Machine Learning with Meteorological and Terrain Data
Taewon Kang, Seunghyeon Park, Pyo-Woong Son, Jiwon Seo
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15235 …

Enhancing eLoran Timing Accuracy via Machine Learning with Meteorological and Terrain Data
The vulnerabilities of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to signal interference have increased the demand for complementary positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems. To address this, South Korea has decided to deploy an enhanced long-range navigation (eLoran) system as a complementary PNT solution. Similar to GNSS, eLoran provides highly accurate timing information, which is essential for applications such as telecommunications, financial systems, and power distribution. Howev…

Democrats Enter Risky Political Terrain as Protests Grip California (Shane Goldmacher/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/us/politics/trump-immigration-ice-democrats.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/250610/p145#a250610p145

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.14814 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csRO_…

VB-Com: Learning Vision-Blind Composite Humanoid Locomotion Against Deficient Perception
The performance of legged locomotion is closely tied to the accuracy and comprehensiveness of state observations. Blind policies, which rely solely on proprioception, are considered highly robust due to the reliability of proprioceptive observations. However, these policies significantly limit locomotion speed and often require collisions with the terrain to adapt. In contrast, Vision policies allows the robot to plan motions in advance and respond proactively to unstructured terrains with an o…

Trump sent the National Guard to Los Angeles at a time when state and local officials said they had protests there under control.

The move reflects an increasingly evident pattern of his presidency:
Trump declares an emergency or crisis where many others do not see one,
enabling him to take sweeping actions,
rally supporters and fight on political terrain he finds favorable.

Trump’s declaration of an economic emergency in April enabled sweeping tariffs.
…

For Trump, seizing emergency powers has become central to governing
President Donald Trump has declared emergencies in various areas. He says strong action is needed; critics say the emergencies don’t exist.

Back home from a bike and hike with a friend. I'm absolutely devastated.
Every muscle from my hips downward hurts. But I made it!
#nature #landscape #hiking

"Electric buses don't like the cold, study finds"
#PublicTransport #Buses #EV #ElectricVehicles

Electric buses don't like the cold, study finds
In 2021, Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) in Ithaca received a grant to procure seven all-electric buses and began a pilot program that didn't go as they'd hoped. In addition to issues with the manufacturers, the buses struggled in Ithaca's hilly terrain and were unreliable, with reduced range, in cold weather.

hey friends! One more photo from my recent hike into the #mountains .
My way went from this point to the right over the summit (not seen on the photo), down to the ridge (right into the photo), along the ridge, and down into the middle of the photo.
An amazing day and an impressive trail!

Real-time Terrain Analysis for Off-road Autonomous Vehicles
Edwina Lewis, Aditya Parameshwaran, Laura Redmond, Yue Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21347 ht…

Real-time Terrain Analysis for Off-road Autonomous Vehicles
This research addresses critical autonomous vehicle control challenges arising from road roughness variation, which induces course deviations and potential loss of road contact during steering operations. We present a novel real-time road roughness estimation system employing Bayesian calibration methodology that processes axle accelerations to predict terrain roughness with quantifiable confidence measures. The technical framework integrates a Gaussian process surrogate model with a simulated …

UAV Object Detection and Positioning in a Mining Industrial Metaverse with Custom Geo-Referenced Data
Vasiliki Balaska, Ioannis Tsampikos Papapetros, Katerina Maria Oikonomou, Loukas Bampis, Antonios Gasteratos
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13505

UAV Object Detection and Positioning in a Mining Industrial Metaverse with Custom Geo-Referenced Data
The mining sector increasingly adopts digital tools to improve operational efficiency, safety, and data-driven decision-making. One of the key challenges remains the reliable acquisition of high-resolution, geo-referenced spatial information to support core activities such as extraction planning and on-site monitoring. This work presents an integrated system architecture that combines UAV-based sensing, LiDAR terrain modeling, and deep learning-based object detection to generate spatially accur…

Excellent papier.
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/06/05/la-concomitance-entre-le-reveil-de-l-ultradroite-et-une-croissance-durablement-atone-en-…

« La concomitance entre le réveil de l’ultradroite et une croissance durablement atone en Europe est frappante »
Dans sa chronique, Alain Frachon, éditorialiste au « Monde » tente d’expliquer pour quelles raisons les partis d’extrême droite gagnent du terrain à travers le continent, élection après élection.

Critical Anatomy-Preserving & Terrain-Augmenting Navigation (CAPTAiN): Application to Laminectomy Surgical Education
Jonathan Wang, Hisashi Ishida, David Usevitch, Kesavan Venkatesh, Yi Wang, Mehran Armand, Rachel Bronheim, Amit Jain, Adnan Munawar
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20496

Critical Anatomy-Preserving & Terrain-Augmenting Navigation (CAPTAiN): Application to Laminectomy Surgical Education
Surgical training remains a crucial milestone in modern medicine, with procedures such as laminectomy exemplifying the high risks involved. Laminectomy drilling requires precise manual control to mill bony tissue while preserving spinal segment integrity and avoiding breaches in the dura: the protective membrane surrounding the spinal cord. Despite unintended tears occurring in up to 11.3% of cases, no assistive tools are currently utilized to reduce this risk. Variability in patient anatomy fu…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #TheCollection
Alain Kounkou:
🎵 Kindobika Tout Terrain
#AlainKounkou
https://open.spotify.com/track/35xZqUsDfb3OxP0TAfcUtc

Objectif lune! #RAP2025 #Astrodon #StarParty #astronomy

Experimental investigation of pose informed reinforcement learning for skid-steered visual navigation
Ameya Salvi, Venkat Krovi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21732

Experimental investigation of pose informed reinforcement learning for skid-steered visual navigation
Vision-based lane keeping is a topic of significant interest in the robotics and autonomous ground vehicles communities in various on-road and off-road applications. The skid-steered vehicle architecture has served as a useful vehicle platform for human controlled operations. However, systematic modeling, especially of the skid-slip wheel terrain interactions (primarily in off-road settings) has created bottlenecks for automation deployment. End-to-end learning based methods such as imitation l…

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning and Value Optimization for Challenging Quadruped Locomotion
Jeremiah Coholich, Muhammad Ali Murtaza, Seth Hutchinson, Zsolt Kira
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20036

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning and Value Optimization for Challenging Quadruped Locomotion
We propose a novel hierarchical reinforcement learning framework for quadruped locomotion over challenging terrain. Our approach incorporates a two-layer hierarchy in which a high-level policy (HLP) selects optimal goals for a low-level policy (LLP). The LLP is trained using an on-policy actor-critic RL algorithm and is given footstep placements as goals. We propose an HLP that does not require any additional training or environment samples and instead operates via an online optimization proces…

Risk-Guided Diffusion: Toward Deploying Robot Foundation Models in Space, Where Failure Is Not An Option
Rohan Thakker, Adarsh Patnaik, Vince Kurtz, Jonas Frey, Jonathan Becktor, Sangwoo Moon, Rob Royce, Marcel Kaufmann, Georgios Georgakis, Pascal Roth, Joel Burdick, Marco Hutter, Shehryar Khattak
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.1760…

Risk-Guided Diffusion: Toward Deploying Robot Foundation Models in Space, Where Failure Is Not An Option
Safe, reliable navigation in extreme, unfamiliar terrain is required for future robotic space exploration missions. Recent generative-AI methods learn semantically aware navigation policies from large, cross-embodiment datasets, but offer limited safety guarantees. Inspired by human cognitive science, we propose a risk-guided diffusion framework that fuses a fast, learned "System-1" with a slow, physics-based "System-2", sharing computation at both training and inference to couple adaptability …

DRIVE Through the Unpredictability:From a Protocol Investigating Slip to a Metric Estimating Command Uncertainty
Nicolas Samson, William Larriv\'ee-Hardy, William Dubois, \'Elie Roy-Brouard, Edith Brotherton, Dominic Baril, Julien L\'epine, Fran\c{c}ois Pomerleau
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16593

DRIVE Through the Unpredictability:From a Protocol Investigating Slip to a Metric Estimating Command Uncertainty
Off-road autonomous navigation is a challenging task as it is mainly dependent on the accuracy of the motion model. Motion model performances are limited by their ability to predict the interaction between the terrain and the UGV, which an onboard sensor can not directly measure. In this work, we propose using the DRIVE protocol to standardize the collection of data for system identification and characterization of the slip state space. We validated this protocol by acquiring a dataset with two…

VLM-Empowered Multi-Mode System for Efficient and Safe Planetary Navigation
Sinuo Cheng, Ruyi Zhou, Wenhao Feng, Huaiguang Yang, Haibo Gao, Zongquan Deng, Liang Ding
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16703

VLM-Empowered Multi-Mode System for Efficient and Safe Planetary Navigation
The increasingly complex and diverse planetary exploration environment requires more adaptable and flexible rover navigation strategy. In this study, we propose a VLM-empowered multi-mode system to achieve efficient while safe autonomous navigation for planetary rovers. Vision-Language Model (VLM) is used to parse scene information by image inputs to achieve a human-level understanding of terrain complexity. Based on the complexity classification, the system switches to the most suitable naviga…

Whole-Body Control Framework for Humanoid Robots with Heavy Limbs: A Model-Based Approach
Tianlin Zhang, Linzhu Yue, Hongbo Zhang, Lingwei Zhang, Xuanqi Zeng, Zhitao Song, Yun-Hui Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14278

Whole-Body Control Framework for Humanoid Robots with Heavy Limbs: A Model-Based Approach
Humanoid robots often face significant balance issues due to the motion of their heavy limbs. These challenges are particularly pronounced when attempting dynamic motion or operating in environments with irregular terrain. To address this challenge, this manuscript proposes a whole-body control framework for humanoid robots with heavy limbs, using a model-based approach that combines a kino-dynamics planner and a hierarchical optimization problem. The kino-dynamics planner is designed as a mode…

Data-Driven Prediction of Dynamic Interactions Between Robot Appendage and Granular Material
Guanjin Wang, Xiangxue Zhao, Shapour Azarm, Balakumar Balachandran
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10875

Data-Driven Prediction of Dynamic Interactions Between Robot Appendage and Granular Material
An alternative data-driven modeling approach has been proposed and employed to gain fundamental insights into robot motion interaction with granular terrain at certain length scales. The approach is based on an integration of dimension reduction (Sequentially Truncated Higher-Order Singular Value Decomposition), surrogate modeling (Gaussian Process), and data assimilation techniques (Reduced Order Particle Filter). This approach can be used online and is based on offline data, obtained from the…