Recommender systemA recommender system, or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing 'system' with a synonym such as platform or engine), is a subclass of information filtering system that provide suggestions for items that are most pertinent to a particular user. Typically, the suggestions refer to various decision-making processes, such as what product to purchase, what music to listen to, or what online news to read. Recommender systems are particularly useful when an individual needs to choose an item from a potentially overwhelming number of items that a service may offer.
RoombaRoomba is a series of autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners made by the company iRobot. Introduced in September 2002, they have a set of sensors that enable them to navigate the floor area of a home. These sensors can detect the presence of obstacles, particularly dirty spots on the floor, and steep drops (e.g., to avoid falling down stairs). As of 2022, iRobot markets models of their 600, i, j, Combo and s9 series, while continuing to provide support and sell accessories for their previous series.
IRobotiRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. The company's products include a range of autonomous home vacuum cleaners (Roomba), floor moppers (Braava), and other autonomous cleaning devices. In August 2022, Amazon.com, Inc. announced its intent to acquire iRobot for US$1.
Robotic mappingRobotic mapping is a discipline related to computer vision and cartography. The goal for an autonomous robot is to be able to construct (or use) a map (outdoor use) or floor plan (indoor use) and to localize itself and its recharging bases or beacons in it. Robotic mapping is that branch which deals with the study and application of ability to localize itself in a map / plan and sometimes to construct the map or floor plan by the autonomous robot. Evolutionarily shaped blind action may suffice to keep some animals alive.
Robotic vacuum cleanerA robotic vacuum cleaner, sometimes called a robovac or a roomba as a generic trademark, is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner which has a limited vacuum floor cleaning system combined with sensors and robotic drives with programmable controllers and cleaning routines. Early designs included manual operation via remote control and a "self-drive" mode which allowed the machine to clean autonomously. Marketing materials for robotic vacuums frequently cite low noise, ease of use, and autonomous cleaning as main advantages.
Simultaneous localization and mappingSimultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of an agent's location within it. While this initially appears to be a chicken or the egg problem, there are several algorithms known to solve it in, at least approximately, tractable time for certain environments. Popular approximate solution methods include the particle filter, extended Kalman filter, covariance intersection, and GraphSLAM.
PersonalizationPersonalization (broadly known as customization) consists of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals. A wide variety of organizations use personalization to improve customer satisfaction, digital sales conversion, marketing results, branding, and improved website metrics as well as for advertising. Personalization is a key element in social media and recommender systems. Personalization is affecting every sector of society—work, leisure, and citizenship.
Robot navigationRobot localization denotes the robot's ability to establish its own position and orientation within the frame of reference. Path planning is effectively an extension of localisation, in that it requires the determination of the robot's current position and a position of a goal location, both within the same frame of reference or coordinates. Map building can be in the shape of a metric map or any notation describing locations in the robot frame of reference. For any mobile device, the ability to navigate in its environment is important.
Structure from motionStructure from motion (SfM) is a photogrammetric range imaging technique for estimating three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional image sequences that may be coupled with local motion signals. It is studied in the fields of computer vision and visual perception. In biological vision, SfM refers to the phenomenon by which humans (and other living creatures) can recover 3D structure from the projected 2D (retinal) motion field of a moving object or scene.
Motion captureMotion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robots. In filmmaking and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors and using that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation. When it includes face and fingers or captures subtle expressions, it is often referred to as performance capture.
Motion controllerIn video games and entertainment systems, a motion controller is a type of game controller that uses accelerometers or other sensors to track motion and provide input. Motion controllers using accelerometers are used as controllers for video games, which was made more popular since 2006 by the Wii Remote controller for Nintendo's Wii console, which uses accelerometers to detect its approximate orientation and acceleration, and serves an image sensor, so it can be used as a pointing device.
Mixture modelIn statistics, a mixture model is a probabilistic model for representing the presence of subpopulations within an overall population, without requiring that an observed data set should identify the sub-population to which an individual observation belongs. Formally a mixture model corresponds to the mixture distribution that represents the probability distribution of observations in the overall population.
Discriminative modelDiscriminative models, also referred to as conditional models, are a class of logistical models used for classification or regression. They distinguish decision boundaries through observed data, such as pass/fail, win/lose, alive/dead or healthy/sick. Typical discriminative models include logistic regression (LR), conditional random fields (CRFs) (specified over an undirected graph), decision trees, and many others. Typical generative model approaches include naive Bayes classifiers, Gaussian mixture models, variational autoencoders, generative adversarial networks and others.
Generative modelIn statistical classification, two main approaches are called the generative approach and the discriminative approach. These compute classifiers by different approaches, differing in the degree of statistical modelling. Terminology is inconsistent, but three major types can be distinguished, following : A generative model is a statistical model of the joint probability distribution on given observable variable X and target variable Y; A discriminative model is a model of the conditional probability of the target Y, given an observation x; and Classifiers computed without using a probability model are also referred to loosely as "discriminative".
Variational Bayesian methodsVariational Bayesian methods are a family of techniques for approximating intractable integrals arising in Bayesian inference and machine learning. They are typically used in complex statistical models consisting of observed variables (usually termed "data") as well as unknown parameters and latent variables, with various sorts of relationships among the three types of random variables, as might be described by a graphical model. As typical in Bayesian inference, the parameters and latent variables are grouped together as "unobserved variables".
TankA tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; usually their main armament is mounted in a turret. They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat.
Tank destroyerA tank destroyer, tank hunter or tank killer is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, predominantly intended for anti-tank duties. As such, they are typically armed with a direct fire artillery gun, then called self-propelled anti-tank gun, or missile launcher, then called anti-tank missile carrier, and designed specifically to engage and destroy enemy tanks, often with limited operational capacities.
Cruiser tankThe cruiser tank (sometimes called cavalry tank or fast tank) was a British tank concept of the interwar period for tanks designed as modernised armoured and mechanised cavalry, as distinguished from infantry tanks. Cruiser tanks were developed after medium tank designs of the 1930s failed to satisfy the Royal Armoured Corps. The cruiser tank concept was conceived by Giffard Le Quesne Martel, who preferred many small light tanks to swarm an opponent, instead of a few expensive and unsatisfactory medium tanks.
