Bayesian Online Learning for Human-assisted Target Localization

TL;DR

This paper presents a Bayesian framework for integrating human visual inputs with autonomous sensors to improve dynamic target localization, emphasizing adaptive reliability modeling and efficient online updates.

Contribution

It introduces a novel joint Bayesian learning method that adaptively fuses human and autonomous sensor data with closed-form updates for real-time target tracking.

Findings

Enhanced target localization accuracy with human-machine collaboration

Adaptive reliability modeling improves fusion robustness

Closed-form Bayesian updates enable efficient online learning

Abstract

We consider a human-assisted autonomy sensor fusion for dynamic target localization in a Bayesian framework. Autonomous sensor-based tracking systems can suffer from observability and target detection failure. Humans possess valuable qualitative information derived from their past knowledge and rapid situational awareness that can give them an advantage over machine perception in many scenarios. To compensate for the shortcomings of an autonomous tracking system, we propose to collect spatial sensing information from human operators who visually monitor the target and can provide target localization information in the form of free sketches encircling the area where the target is located. However, human inputs cannot be taken deterministically and trusted absolutely due to their inherent subjectivity and variability. Our focus in this paper is to construct an adaptive probabilistic model for human-provided inputs where the adaptation terms capture the level of reliability of the human inputs. The next contribution of this paper is a novel joint Bayesian learning method to fuse human and autonomous sensor inputs in a manner that the dynamic changes in human detection reliability are also captured and accounted for. Unlike deep learning frameworks, a unique aspect of this Bayesian modeling framework is its analytical closed-form update equations. This feature provides computational efficiency and allows for online learning from limited data sets. Simulations demonstrate our results, underscoring the value of human-machine collaboration in autonomous systems.