Dr. Cdric Pradalier Institut fr Robotik und Intelligente Systeme Autonomous Systems Lab CLA E 16.

1 Tannenstrae 3 8092 Zrich cedric.pradalier@mavt.ethz.ch www.asl.ethz.ch/people/cedricp

Topics: neural networks, reinforcement learning, face recognition

Exam Questions

Neural networks: principle

(a) What is the role of the hidden layers in a neural network? (b) What is the difference between a neural network designed as an approximator and one designed as a classifier? (c) What is the most popular algorithm for training a neural network? What is its principle? (d) What are the type of problems that can be solved with neural networks? What are the advantages? What are the inconvenient?

Neural networks: applications

(a) Describe a neural network that could be used to identify the colour of human skin in a computer vision application. How can it be trained? (b) Describe a neural network that could be used to control the steering of a robotic car on a race track. How can it be trained? (c) A surveillance camera is used to observe the main hall of an official building. From the position of visitors in the camera frame, we want to be able to compute their position on the building map. Describe a neural network that could be used to achieve this task. How can the system be calibrated? (d) On a forklift system, it is necessary to accurately localise the tips of the fork with respect to the vehicle reference point. On this model of forklift, it is possible to tilt the mast, lift the forks and change their spacing. Each axis is equipped with a noisy potentiometer. Design a neural network that could be used to achieve this task. How can it be trained?

Reinforcement learning: principle

(a) What kind of problem can be solved with reinforcement learning algorithms? What are the advantages and the disadvantages of this technique? (b) Describes the n-armed bandit system and the basic greedy algorithm to learn it. What are the basic solutions to improve this algorithm? (c) What is the influence of the learning rate in reinforcement learning methods? In which case is it useful to have a learning rate not converging to zero? (d) What are the key differences between dynamic programming methods and montecarlo or temporal differences methods?

Reinforcement learning: applications

(a) A mobile robot is equipped with an omnidirectional range sensor and bumpers. We want to make it learn an obstacle avoidance behaviour. Describe how this can be addressed with reinforcement learning. (b) In the movie War Games, the main character use the tic-tac-toe to show the computer controlling nuclear missiles that some conflict cannot be won by either side. Explain how a reinforcement learning approach could be used to learn to play tictac-toe. (c) Explain how a reinforcement learning strategy can be used to train a mobile robot to follow a trajectory. (d) Most of the examples developped during the class used a very simple grid-world environment? What is the problem with more complex environment? What other tool presented in the class is often use to address these cases?

Face recognition
(a) What is the principle of Principal Component Analysis for face recognition? How is it applied? Is it a suitable solution for face detection? (b) As a face recognition algorithm PCA is very sensitive to some image change, less to others. Describe the key sensitivity of PCA.

(c) Summarise the principle of AdaBoost with simple stumps. Give an example of data set that can be learned by AdaBoost, and one that is not optimal. (d) Explain how AdaBoost can be used for face detection. How is it trained? What are the features? How is it applied?