With the increase of robotic presence in our homes and work environment, it has become imperative to consider human-in-the-loop systems when designing robotic controllers. This includes both a physical presence of humans as well as interaction on a decision and control level. One important aspect of this is to design controllers which are guaranteed to satisfy specified safety constraints. At the same time we must minimize the risk of not finding solutions, which would force the system to stop. This require some room for relaxation to be put on the specifications. Another aspect is to design the system to be adaptive to the human and its environment. In this thesis we approach the problem by considering control synthesis for multi-agent systems under hard and soft constraints, where the human has direct impact on how the soft constraint is violated. To handle the multi-agent structure we consider both a classical centralized automata based framework and a decentralized approach with collision avoidance. To handle soft constraints we introduce a novel metric; hybrid distance, which quantify the violation. The hybrid distance consists of two types of violation; continuous distance or missing deadlines, and discrete distance or spacial violation. These distances are weighed against each other with a weight constant we will denote as the human preference constant. For the human impact we consider two types of feedback; direct feedback on the violation in the form of determining the human preference constant, and direct control input through mixed-initiative control where the human preference constant is determined through an inverse reinforcement learning algorithm based on the suggested and followed paths. The methods are validated through simulations. / I takt med att robotar blir allt vanligare i våra hem och i våra arbetsmiljöer, har det blivit allt viktigare att ta hänsyn till människan plats i systemen när regulatorerna för robotorna designas. Detta innefattar både människans fysiska närvaro och interaktion på besluts- och reglernivå. En viktig aspekt i detta är att designa regulatorer som garanterat uppfyller givna villkor. Samtidigt måste vi minimera risken att ingen lösning hittas, eftersom det skulle tvinga systemet till ett stopp. För att uppnå detta krävs det att det finns rum för att mjuka upp villkoren. En annan aspekt är att designa systemet så att det är anpassningsbart till människan och miljön. I den här uppsatsen närmar vi oss problemet genom att använda regulator syntes för multi-agent system under hårda och mjuka villkor där människan har direkt påverkan på hur det svaga villkoret överträds. För att hantera multi-agent strukturen undersöker vi både det klassiska centraliserade automata-baserade ramverket och ett icke-centraliserat tillvägagångsätt med krockundvikning. För att hantera mjuka villkor introducerar vi en metrik; hybrida avståndet, som kvantifierar överträdelsen. Det hybrida avståndet består av två typer av överträdelse (kontinuerligt avstånd eller missandet av deadlines, och diskret avstånd eller rumsliga överträdelser) som vägs mot varandra med en vikt konstant som vi kommer att kalla den mänskliga preferens kontanten. Som mänsklig påverkan överväger vi direkt feedback på överträdelsen genom att hon bestämmer värdet på den mänskliga preferens kontanten, och direkt påverkan på regulatorn där den mänskliga preferens konstanten bestäms genom en inverserad förstärkt inlärnings algoritm baserad på de föreslagna och följda vägarna. Metoderna valideras genom simuleringar. / <p>QC20190517</p>

Cette thèse se situe dans le domaine de la programmation par contraintes (CP). Plus précisément, nous nous intéressons au problème de satisfaction de contraintes pondérées (WCSP), qui est un problème d'optimisation pour lequel plusieurs formes de cohérences locales souples telles que, par exemple, la cohérence d’arc existentielle directionnelle (EDAC*) et la cohérence d’arc virtuelle (VAC) ont été proposées durant ces dernières années. Dans ce cadre, nous adoptons une perspective différente en revisitant la propriété bien connue de la substituabilité. Tout d’abord, nous précisons les relations existant entre la substituabilité de voisinage souple (SNS) et une propriété appelée pcost qui est basée sur le concept de surcoût de valeurs (par le biais de l'utilisation de paires de surcoût). Nous montrons que sous certaines hypothèses, pcost est équivalent à SNS, mais que dans le cas général, elle est plus faible que SNS prouvée être coNP-difficile. Ensuite, nous montrons que SNS conserve la propriété VAC, mais pas la propriété EDAC. Enfin, nous introduisons un algorithme optimisé et nous montrons sur diverses séries d’instances WCSP l’intérêt pratique du maintien de pcost avec AC*, FDAC* ou EDAC*, au cours de la recherche. Nous introduisons un algorithme optimisé et nous étudions la relation existante entre SNS et les différentes cohérences. Nous présentons aussi un nouveau type de propriétés pour les WCSPs. Il s'agit de la cohérence de tuples (TC) dont l'établissement sur un WCN est effectué grâce à une nouvelle opération appelée TupleProject. Nous proposons également une version optimale de cette propriété, OTC, qui peut être perçue comme une généralisation de OSAC (Optimal Soft Arc Consistency). Enfin, nous étendons la notion de substituabilité souple aux tuples. / This thesis is in the field of constraint programming (CP). More precisely, we focus on the weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP), which is an optimization problem for which many forms of soft local (arc) consistencies have been proposed such as, for example, existential directional arc consistency (EDAC) and virtual arc consistency (VAC) in recent years. In this context, we adopt a different perspective by revisiting the well-known property of (soft) substitutability. First, we provide a clear picture of the relationships existing between soft neighborhood substitutability (SNS) and a tractable property called $pcost$ which allows us to compare the cost of two values (through the use of so-called cost pairs). We prove that under certain assumptions, $pcost$ is equivalent to SNS but weaker than SNS in the general case since we show that SNS is coNP-hard. We also show that SNS preserves the property VAC but not the property EDAC. Finally, we introduce an optimized algorithm and we show on various series of WCSP instances, the practical interest of maintaining $pcost$ together with AC*, FDAC* or EDAC*, during search. We also present a new type of properties for WCSPs called tuples consistency (TC). Enforcing TC is done through a new operation called TupleProject. Moreover, we propose an optimal version of this property, OTC, which can be seen as a generalization of OSAC (Optimal Soft Arc Consistency). Finally, we extend soft substitutability concept to tuples.

Yes / Assessment of children for school readiness is a crucial process that requires extensive effort to select the sequence of tests most appropriate for the particular case to be investigated. Indeed, the success of the assessment depends highly on the diversity, flexibility, and comprehensiveness of the tests available and the ability of the applied system to decide on the specific sequence of tests to be utilized for each child based on his/her skills which should be discovered dynam- ically as the assessment progresses. Given the huge search space for the test cases to be utilized in the assessment process, it is preferred to apply an optimization technique capable of finding an appropriate test case that better fits the skills of a given child. It was decided to use a genetic algorithm (GA)-based approach for the optimization process. Any other optimization technique could have been used and utilizing the GA is a personal decision to complement the framework developed for this paper. GAs have been widely and successfully used in various application domains. Fortunately, the results reported in this paper demonstrate the effective- ness of the utilized GA in handling the assessment process to decide on school readiness. Assessment of a person’s abilities and skills is an important task for organizations. Examples include evaluating a child’s readiness for school or determining an employee’s aptitude for a position. The assessment involves various parameters related to the test subject’s aptitude, such as motor skills, linguistic development, or deductive capabilities, among others. The assessment may be conducted by various bodies, such as public education systems, commercial testing companies, and recruiters. To facilitate the assessment process in a systematic way less influenced by the attitude of a specific domain expert, it is preferred to develop and employ web-based assessment systems which integrate the skills of professional domain experts. A recent innovation is an adaptive web-based stealth assessment that analyzes the subject’s skill and dynamically adapts the assessment tests accordingly. A web-based stealth assessment is used for evaluating school readiness of a child by having the child play a series of games comparing the child’s per- formance with a database of performance results for a population. The web-based stealth assessment includes a processor for processing the child’s performance data, for comparing the performance data with the performance results of the population, and for applying a GA to determine the most appropriate next test for the child.

This thesis presents kinematic templates, end-user drawing tools that influence the mouse cursor's movement within specific areas of a digital canvas. Two types of kinematic templates influence the cursor's movement: passive and active templates. Passive templates modify existing movement received from a pointing device to change the cursor's speed or direction of one's stroke. Active templates add movement to the cursor without movement from the pointing device. Since templates are provided as user-specified regions, these regions can be associated with areas of detail and they can be overlapped as a means of function composition. [¶] A kinematic template can be configured to improve upon one's freehand output without producing perfect output. Since templates do not necessarily prescribe geometric output, they constitute a visual composition aid that lies between unaided freehand drawing and drawing aids such as snapping constraints and perfect geometric primitives. [¶] Since kinematic templates can improve upon the consistency of one's strokes, it is beneficial for drawing visual styles such as hatching (an artistic effect that adds depth to a drawing with uniform strokes drawn in close proximity) and repetitive patterns. Since kinematic templates do not prescribe a type of output, one can "fight against" a template's preferred path of movement and discover unexpected, serendipitous outcomes.

This thesis presents kinematic templates, end-user drawing tools that influence the mouse cursor's movement within specific areas of a digital canvas. Two types of kinematic templates influence the cursor's movement: passive and active templates. Passive templates modify existing movement received from a pointing device to change the cursor's speed or direction of one's stroke. Active templates add movement to the cursor without movement from the pointing device. Since templates are provided as user-specified regions, these regions can be associated with areas of detail and they can be overlapped as a means of function composition. [¶] A kinematic template can be configured to improve upon one's freehand output without producing perfect output. Since templates do not necessarily prescribe geometric output, they constitute a visual composition aid that lies between unaided freehand drawing and drawing aids such as snapping constraints and perfect geometric primitives. [¶] Since kinematic templates can improve upon the consistency of one's strokes, it is beneficial for drawing visual styles such as hatching (an artistic effect that adds depth to a drawing with uniform strokes drawn in close proximity) and repetitive patterns. Since kinematic templates do not prescribe a type of output, one can "fight against" a template's preferred path of movement and discover unexpected, serendipitous outcomes.