Publications | Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

2018

al ics Baumann, D., Zhu, J., Martius, G., Trimpe, S. Deep Reinforcement Learning for Resource-aware Control In Proceedings of the 57th IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control, Miami, Fl, USA, December 2018 (inproceedings) Accepted

Nonlinear decoding of a complex movie from the mammalian retina

Botella-Soler, V., Deny, S., Martius, G., Marre, O., Tkačik, G.

PLOS Computational Biology, 14(5):1-27, Public Library of Science, May 2018 (article)

Abstract

Author summary Neurons in the retina transform patterns of incoming light into sequences of neural spikes. We recorded from ∼100 neurons in the rat retina while it was stimulated with a complex movie. Using machine learning regression methods, we fit decoders to reconstruct the movie shown from the retinal output. We demonstrated that retinal code can only be read out with a low error if decoders make use of correlations between successive spikes emitted by individual neurons. These correlations can be used to ignore spontaneous spiking that would, otherwise, cause even the best linear decoders to “hallucinate” nonexistent stimuli. This work represents the first high resolution single-trial full movie reconstruction and suggests a new paradigm for separating spontaneous from stimulus-driven neural activity.

al Botella-Soler, V., Deny, S., Martius, G., Marre, O., Tkačik, G. Nonlinear decoding of a complex movie from the mammalian retina PLOS Computational Biology, 14(5):1-27, Public Library of Science, May 2018 (article)

Systematic self-exploration of behaviors for robots in a dynamical systems framework

Pinneri, C., Martius, G.

In 2018 (inproceedings)

Abstract

One of the challenges of this century is to understand the neural mechanisms behind cognitive control and learning. Recent investigations propose biologically plausible synaptic mechanisms for self-organizing controllers, in the spirit of Hebbian learning. In particular, differential extrinsic plasticity (DEP) [Der and Martius, PNAS 2015], has proven to enable embodied agents to self-organize their individual sensorimotor development, and generate highly coordinated behaviors during their interaction with the environment. These behaviors are attractors of a dynamical system. In this paper, we use the DEP rule to generate attractors and we combine it with a “repelling potential” which allows the system to actively explore all its attractor behaviors in a systematic way. With a view to a self-determined exploration of goal-free behaviors, our framework enables switching between different motion patterns in an autonomous and sequential fashion. Our algorithm is able to recover all the attractor behaviors in a toy system and it is also effective in two simulated environments. A spherical robot discovers all its major rolling modes and a hexapod robot learns to locomote in 50 different ways in 30min.

Arxiv Code [BibTex]

al Pinneri, C., Martius, G. Systematic self-exploration of behaviors for robots in a dynamical systems framework In 2018 (inproceedings)

Arxiv Code [BibTex]

Learning equations for extrapolation and control

Sahoo, S. S., Lampert, C. H., Martius, G.

In Proc. 35th International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML 2018, Stockholm, Sweden, 2018, ArXiv preprint: \urlhttps://arxiv.org/abs/1806.07259, PMLR, 2018, to appear (inproceedings)

Abstract

We present an approach to identify concise equations from data using a shallow neural network approach. In contrast to ordinary black-box regression, this approach allows understanding functional relations and generalizing them from observed data to unseen parts of the parameter space. We show how to extend the class of learnable equations for a recently proposed equation learning network to include divisions, and we improve the learning and model selection strategy to be useful for challenging real-world data. For systems governed by analytical expressions, our method can in many cases identify the true underlying equation and extrapolate to unseen domains. We demonstrate its effectiveness by experiments on a cart-pendulum system, where only 2 random rollouts are required to learn the forward dynamics and successfully achieve the swing-up task.

al Sahoo, S. S., Lampert, C. H., Martius, G. Learning equations for extrapolation and control In Proc. 35th International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML 2018, Stockholm, Sweden, 2018, ArXiv preprint: \urlhttps://arxiv.org/abs/1806.07259, PMLR, 2018, to appear (inproceedings)

2017

Self-Organized Behavior Generation for Musculoskeletal Robots

Der, R., Martius, G.

Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 11, pages: 8, 2017 (article)

2017

al Der, R., Martius, G. Self-Organized Behavior Generation for Musculoskeletal Robots Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 11, pages: 8, 2017 (article)

Martius, G., Lampert, C. H.

2016

Extrapolation and learning equations

2016, arXiv preprint \url{https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02995} (misc)

2016

al Martius, G., Lampert, C. H. Extrapolation and learning equations 2016, arXiv preprint \url{https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02995} (misc)

Dynamical self-consistency leads to behavioral development and emergent social interactions in robots.

Der, R., Martius, G.

In Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics, 2016, in press (inproceedings)

al Der, R., Martius, G. Dynamical self-consistency leads to behavioral development and emergent social interactions in robots. In Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics, 2016, in press (inproceedings)

Compliant control for soft robots: emergent behavior of a tendon driven anthropomorphic arm.

Martius, G., Hostettler, R., Knoll, A., Der, R.

In 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 767-773, 2016 (inproceedings)

al Martius, G., Hostettler, R., Knoll, A., Der, R. Compliant control for soft robots: emergent behavior of a tendon driven anthropomorphic arm. In 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 767-773, 2016 (inproceedings)

2015

Novel plasticity rule can explain the development of sensorimotor intelligence

Der, R., Martius, G.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(45):E6224-E6232, 2015 (article)

Abstract

Grounding autonomous behavior in the nervous system is a fundamental challenge for neuroscience. In particular, self-organized behavioral development provides more questions than answers. Are there special functional units for curiosity, motivation, and creativity? This paper argues that these features can be grounded in synaptic plasticity itself, without requiring any higher-level constructs. We propose differential extrinsic plasticity (DEP) as a new synaptic rule for self-learning systems and apply it to a number of complex robotic systems as a test case. Without specifying any purpose or goal, seemingly purposeful and adaptive rhythmic behavior is developed, displaying a certain level of sensorimotor intelligence. These surprising results require no system-specific modifications of the DEP rule. They rather arise from the underlying mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking, which is due to the tight brain body environment coupling. The new synaptic rule is biologically plausible and would be an interesting target for neurobiological investigation. We also argue that this neuronal mechanism may have been a catalyst in natural evolution.

2015

al Der, R., Martius, G. Novel plasticity rule can explain the development of sensorimotor intelligence Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(45):E6224-E6232, 2015 (article)

Quantifying Emergent Behavior of Autonomous Robots

Martius, G., Olbrich, E.

Entropy, 17(10):7266, 2015 (article)

al Martius, G., Olbrich, E. Quantifying Emergent Behavior of Autonomous Robots Entropy, 17(10):7266, 2015 (article)

2014

Self-Exploration of the Stumpy Robot with Predictive Information Maximization

Martius, G., Jahn, L., Hauser, H., V. Hafner, V.

In Proc. From Animals to Animats, SAB 2014, 8575, pages: 32-42, LNCS, Springer, 2014 (inproceedings)

2014

al Martius, G., Jahn, L., Hauser, H., V. Hafner, V. Self-Exploration of the Stumpy Robot with Predictive Information Maximization In Proc. From Animals to Animats, SAB 2014, 8575, pages: 32-42, LNCS, Springer, 2014 (inproceedings)

Robot Learning by Guided Self-Organization

Martius, G., Der, R., Herrmann, J. M.

In Guided Self-Organization: Inception, 9, pages: 223-260, Emergence, Complexity and Computation, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2014 (incollection)

al Martius, G., Der, R., Herrmann, J. M. Robot Learning by Guided Self-Organization In Guided Self-Organization: Inception, 9, pages: 223-260, Emergence, Complexity and Computation, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2014 (incollection)

2013

Behavior as broken symmetry in embodied self-organizing robots

Der, R., Martius, G.

In Advances in Artificial Life, ECAL 2013, pages: 601-608, MIT Press, 2013 (incollection)

2013

al Der, R., Martius, G. Behavior as broken symmetry in embodied self-organizing robots In Advances in Artificial Life, ECAL 2013, pages: 601-608, MIT Press, 2013 (incollection)

Information Driven Self-Organization of Complex Robotic Behaviors

Martius, G., Der, R., Ay, N.

PLoS ONE, 8(5):e63400, Public Library of Science, 2013 (article)

al Martius, G., Der, R., Ay, N. Information Driven Self-Organization of Complex Robotic Behaviors PLoS ONE, 8(5):e63400, Public Library of Science, 2013 (article)

Linear combination of one-step predictive information with an external reward in an episodic policy gradient setting: a critical analysis

Zahedi, K., Martius, G., Ay, N.

Frontiers in Psychology, 4(801), 2013 (article)

Abstract

One of the main challenges in the field of embodied artificial intelligence is the open-ended autonomous learning of complex behaviours. Our approach is to use task-independent, information-driven intrinsic motivation(s) to support task-dependent learning. The work presented here is a preliminary step in which we investigate the predictive information (the mutual information of the past and future of the sensor stream) as an intrinsic drive, ideally supporting any kind of task acquisition. Previous experiments have shown that the predictive information (PI) is a good candidate to support autonomous, open-ended learning of complex behaviours, because a maximisation of the PI corresponds to an exploration of morphology- and environment-dependent behavioural regularities. The idea is that these regularities can then be exploited in order to solve any given task. Three different experiments are presented and their results lead to the conclusion that the linear combination of the one-step PI with an external reward function is not generally recommended in an episodic policy gradient setting. Only for hard tasks a great speed-up can be achieved at the cost of an asymptotic performance lost.

al Zahedi, K., Martius, G., Ay, N. Linear combination of one-step predictive information with an external reward in an episodic policy gradient setting: a critical analysis Frontiers in Psychology, 4(801), 2013 (article)

Robustness of guided self-organization against sensorimotor disruptions

Martius, G.

Advances in Complex Systems, 16(02n03):1350001, 2013 (article)

Abstract

Self-organizing processes are crucial for the development of living beings. Practical applications in robots may benefit from the self-organization of behavior, e.g.~to increase fault tolerance and enhance flexibility, provided that external goals can also be achieved. We present results on the guidance of self-organizing control by visual target stimuli and show a remarkable robustness to sensorimotor disruptions. In a proof of concept study an autonomous wheeled robot is learning an object finding and ball-pushing task from scratch within a few minutes in continuous domains. The robustness is demonstrated by the rapid recovery of the performance after severe changes of the sensor configuration.

al Martius, G. Robustness of guided self-organization against sensorimotor disruptions Advances in Complex Systems, 16(02n03):1350001, 2013 (article)

2012

Variants of guided self-organization for robot control

Martius, G., Herrmann, J.

Theory in Biosci., 131(3):129-137, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2012 (article)

2012

al Martius, G., Herrmann, J. Variants of guided self-organization for robot control Theory in Biosci., 131(3):129-137, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2012 (article)

The Playful Machine - Theoretical Foundation and Practical Realization of Self-Organizing Robots

Der, R., Martius, G.

Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 2012 (book)

Abstract

Autonomous robots may become our closest companions in the near future. While the technology for physically building such machines is already available today, a problem lies in the generation of the behavior for such complex machines. Nature proposes a solution: young children and higher animals learn to master their complex brain-body systems by playing. Can this be an option for robots? How can a machine be playful? The book provides answers by developing a general principle---homeokinesis, the dynamical symbiosis between brain, body, and environment---that is shown to drive robots to self-determined, individual development in a playful and obviously embodiment-related way: a dog-like robot starts playing with a barrier, eventually jumping or climbing over it; a snakebot develops coiling and jumping modes; humanoids develop climbing behaviors when fallen into a pit, or engage in wrestling-like scenarios when encountering an opponent. The book also develops guided self-organization, a new method that helps to make the playful machines fit for fulfilling tasks in the real world.

al Der, R., Martius, G. The Playful Machine - Theoretical Foundation and Practical Realization of Self-Organizing Robots Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 2012 (book)

2011

Tipping the Scales: Guidance and Intrinsically Motivated Behavior

Martius, G., Herrmann, J. M.

In Advances in Artificial Life, ECAL 2011, pages: 506-513, (Editors: Tom Lenaerts and Mario Giacobini and Hugues Bersini and Paul Bourgine and Marco Dorigo and René Doursat), MIT Press, 2011 (incollection)

2011

al Martius, G., Herrmann, J. M. Tipping the Scales: Guidance and Intrinsically Motivated Behavior In Advances in Artificial Life, ECAL 2011, pages: 506-513, (Editors: Tom Lenaerts and Mario Giacobini and Hugues Bersini and Paul Bourgine and Marco Dorigo and René Doursat), MIT Press, 2011 (incollection)

2010

Goal-Oriented Control of Self-Organizing Behavior in Autonomous Robots

Martius, G.

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2010 (phdthesis)

2010

al Martius, G. Goal-Oriented Control of Self-Organizing Behavior in Autonomous Robots Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2010 (phdthesis)

\textscLpzRobots: A free and powerful robot simulator

Martius, G., Hesse, F., Güttler, F., Der, R.

\urlhttp://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/software, 2010 (misc)

al Martius, G., Hesse, F., Güttler, F., Der, R. \textscLpzRobots: A free and powerful robot simulator \urlhttp://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/software, 2010 (misc)

Playful Machines: Tutorial

Der, R., Martius, G.

\urlhttp://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/tutorial?lang=en, 2010 (misc)

al Der, R., Martius, G. Playful Machines: Tutorial \urlhttp://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/tutorial?lang=en, 2010 (misc)

Taming the Beast: Guided Self-organization of Behavior in Autonomous Robots

Martius, G., Herrmann, J. M.

In From Animals to Animats 11, 6226, pages: 50-61, LNCS, Springer, 2010 (incollection)

al Martius, G., Herrmann, J. M. Taming the Beast: Guided Self-organization of Behavior in Autonomous Robots In From Animals to Animats 11, 6226, pages: 50-61, LNCS, Springer, 2010 (incollection)

2009

A Sensor-Based Learning Algorithm for the Self-Organization of Robot Behavior

Hesse, F., Martius, G., Der, R., Herrmann, J. M.

Algorithms, 2(1):398-409, 2009 (article)

Abstract

Ideally, sensory information forms the only source of information to a robot. We consider an algorithm for the self-organization of a controller. At short timescales the controller is merely reactive but the parameter dynamics and the acquisition of knowledge by an internal model lead to seemingly purposeful behavior on longer timescales. As a paradigmatic example, we study the simulation of an underactuated snake-like robot. By interacting with the real physical system formed by the robotic hardware and the environment, the controller achieves a sensitive and body-specific actuation of the robot.

2009

al Hesse, F., Martius, G., Der, R., Herrmann, J. M. A Sensor-Based Learning Algorithm for the Self-Organization of Robot Behavior Algorithms, 2(1):398-409, 2009 (article)

2008

Emergence of Interaction Among Adaptive Agents

Martius, G., Nolfi, S., Herrmann, J. M.

In Proc. From Animals to Animats 10 (SAB 2008), 5040, pages: 457-466, LNCS, Springer, 2008 (inproceedings)

2008

al Martius, G., Nolfi, S., Herrmann, J. M. Emergence of Interaction Among Adaptive Agents In Proc. From Animals to Animats 10 (SAB 2008), 5040, pages: 457-466, LNCS, Springer, 2008 (inproceedings)

Structure from Behavior in Autonomous Agents

Martius, G., Fiedler, K., Herrmann, J.

In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2008), pages: 858 - 862, 2008 (inproceedings)

al Martius, G., Fiedler, K., Herrmann, J. Structure from Behavior in Autonomous Agents In Proc. IEEE Intl. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2008), pages: 858 - 862, 2008 (inproceedings)

2007

Guided Self-organisation for Autonomous Robot Development

Martius, G., Herrmann, J. M., Der, R.

In Advances in Artificial Life 9th European Conference, ECAL 2007, 4648, pages: 766-775, LNCS, Springer, 2007 (inproceedings)

2007

al Martius, G., Herrmann, J. M., Der, R. Guided Self-organisation for Autonomous Robot Development In Advances in Artificial Life 9th European Conference, ECAL 2007, 4648, pages: 766-775, LNCS, Springer, 2007 (inproceedings)

2006

Let It Roll – Emerging Sensorimotor Coordination in a Spherical Robot

Der, R., Martius, G., Hesse, F.

In Proc, Artificial Life X, pages: 192-198, Intl. Society for Artificial Life, MIT Press, August 2006 (inproceedings)

2006

al Der, R., Martius, G., Hesse, F. Let It Roll – Emerging Sensorimotor Coordination in a Spherical Robot In Proc, Artificial Life X, pages: 192-198, Intl. Society for Artificial Life, MIT Press, August 2006 (inproceedings)

From Motor Babbling to Purposive Actions: Emerging Self-exploration in a Dynamical Systems Approach to Early Robot Development

Der, R., Martius, G.

In Proc. From Animals to Animats 9, SAB 2006, 4095, pages: 406-421, LNCS, Springer, 2006 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Self-organization and the phenomenon of emergence play an essential role in living systems and form a challenge to artificial life systems. This is not only because systems become more lifelike, but also since self-organization may help in reducing the design efforts in creating complex behavior systems. The present paper studies self-exploration based on a general approach to the self-organization of behavior, which has been developed and tested in various examples in recent years. This is a step towards autonomous early robot development. We consider agents under the close sensorimotor coupling paradigm with a certain cognitive ability realized by an internal forward model. Starting from tabula rasa initial conditions we overcome the bootstrapping problem and show emerging self-exploration. Apart from that, we analyze the effect of limited actions, which lead to deprivation of the world model. We show that our paradigm explicitly avoids this by producing purposive actions in a natural way. Examples are given using a simulated simple wheeled robot and a spherical robot driven by shifting internal masses.

al Der, R., Martius, G. From Motor Babbling to Purposive Actions: Emerging Self-exploration in a Dynamical Systems Approach to Early Robot Development In Proc. From Animals to Animats 9, SAB 2006, 4095, pages: 406-421, LNCS, Springer, 2006 (inproceedings)

Rocking Stamper and Jumping Snake from a Dynamical System Approach to Artificial Life

Der, R., Hesse, F., Martius, G.

Adaptive Behavior, 14(2):105-115, 2006 (article)

Abstract

Dynamical systems offer intriguing possibilities as a substrate for the generation of behavior because of their rich behavioral complexity. However this complexity together with the largely covert relation between the parameters and the behavior of the agent is also the main hindrance in the goal-oriented design of a behavior system. This paper presents a general approach to the self-regulation of dynamical systems so that the design problem is circumvented. We consider the controller (a neural net work) as the mediator for changes in the sensor values over time and define a dynamics for the parameters of the controller by maximizing the dynamical complexity of the sensorimotor loop under the condition that the consequences of the actions taken are still predictable. This very general principle is given a concrete mathematical formulation and is implemented in an extremely robust and versatile algorithm for the parameter dynamics of the controller. We consider two different applications, a mechanical device called the rocking stamper and the ODE simulations of a "snake" with five degrees of freedom. In these and many other examples studied we observed various behavior modes of high dynamical complexity.

al Der, R., Hesse, F., Martius, G. Rocking Stamper and Jumping Snake from a Dynamical System Approach to Artificial Life Adaptive Behavior, 14(2):105-115, 2006 (article)

2005

Learning to Feel the Physics of a Body

Der, R., Hesse, F., Martius, G.

In Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and Automation, CIMCA 2005 , 2, pages: 252-257, Washington, DC, USA, 2005 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Despite the tremendous progress in robotic hardware and in both sensorial and computing efficiencies the performance of contemporary autonomous robots is still far below that of simple animals. This has triggered an intensive search for alternative approaches to the control of robots. The present paper exemplifies a general approach to the self-organization of behavior which has been developed and tested in various examples in recent years. We apply this approach to an underactuated snake like artifact with a complex physical behavior which is not known to the controller. Due to the weak forces available, the controller so to say has to develop a kind of feeling for the body which is seen to emerge from our approach in a natural way with meandering and rotational collective modes being observed in computer simulation experiments.

2005

al Der, R., Hesse, F., Martius, G. Learning to Feel the Physics of a Body In Computational Intelligence for Modelling, Control and Automation, CIMCA 2005 , 2, pages: 252-257, Washington, DC, USA, 2005 (inproceedings)