Manifold learning is a hot topic in the field of computer science, particularly since nonlinear dimensionality reduction based on manifold learning was proposed in Science in 2000. The work has achieved great success. The main purpose of current manifold-learning approaches is to search for independent intrinsic variables underlying high dimensional inputs which lie on a low dimensional manifold. In this paper, a new manifold is built up in the training step of the process, on which the input training samples are set to be close to each other if the values of their intrinsic variables are close to each other. Then, the process of dimensionality reduction is transformed into a procedure of preserving the continuity of the intrinsic variables. By utilizing the new manifold, the dynamic tracking of a human who can move and rotate freely is achieved. From the theoretical point of view, it is the first approach to transfer the manifold-learning framework to dynamic tracking. From the application point of view, a new and low dimensional feature for visual tracking is obtained and successfully applied to the real-time tracking of a free-moving object from a dynamic vision system. Experimental results from a dynamic tracking system which is mounted on a dynamic robot validate the effectiveness of the new algorithm.

Underwater robot plays an important role in underwater perception and manipulation tasks. Vision information processing is essential for the intelligent perception of an underwater robot, in which image matching is a fundamental topic. Feature-based image matching is suitable for the underwater environment. However, current underwater image matching usually directly applies those methods with a general purpose or designed for images obtained from the land to underwater images. The problem is that the blurring appearance caused feature descriptor ambiguity, which may greatly deteriorate the performance of these methods on underwater images. Aiming at problem, this article provides an underwater image matching framework by incorporating structural constraints. By integrating the appearance descriptor and structural information by a graph model, the feature correspondence-based image matching is formulated and solved by a graph matching method. Particularly, to solve the outlier feature problem, the graph matching method is applicable to the case where outlier features exist in both underwater images. Experiments on both synthetic points and real-world underwater images validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, the finite-time formation problem of UAVs is investigated with consideration of semi-Markov-type switching topologies. More precisely, finite-time passivity performance is adopted to overcome the dynamical effect of disturbances. Furthermore, an asynchronous event-triggered communication scheme is proposed for more efficient information exchanges. The mode-dependent formation controllers are designed in terms of the Lyapunov–Krasovskii method, such that the configuration formation can be accomplished. Finally, simulation results are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed formation approach.

In this paper, the passive filtering problem of flexible robotic manipulator is investigated over sensor networks in a distributed manner from the control system perspective. The sensor networks are adopted to estimate true states of flexible robotic manipulator. In particular, the semi-Markov model is utilized for flexible manipulators with varying loads in unstructured environment, which is more flexible for practical implementations. Moreover, the new mode-dependent event-triggering mechanism is developed for distributed filter communications. Based on model transformation, sufficient conditions are first established to guarantee prescribed passive performance under disturbances. Then, desired mode-dependent filters are developed with the aid of convex optimization. In the end, several simulations results of a single-link flexible robotic manipulator are provided to verify the usefulness of the developed filtering algorithm.