Huachen Qi, Ruiyu Zhuo, Bowen Shi, Xiang Chang, Fei Chao, Changjing Shang, Qiang Shen. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2026.

We present Xspine, a design and fabrication method for creating motion-capable, self-sensing structures using multi-material FDM 3D printing with conductive filaments. Our method embeds compliant mechanisms and circuits directly into geometries, enabling the detection of large deformations in a single, assembly-free print. Specifically, we design printable components and circuit layouts aligned with the layer-by-layer nature of FDM 3D printing. Furthermore, we explore physical and digital augmentation strategies to enhance the interactive potential of the structures. To simplify the workflow, we develop an interactive design tool that allows users to configure motion behaviors, preview structural responses, and generate printable circuits. Finally, we demonstrate several application examples that highlight the potential of Xspine for customizable and interactive 3D-printed devices.

We present Y-zipper, a novel three-sided 3D-printed zipper structure that enables three flexible strips to interlock and transform into a rigid rod-like form. Building on this flex–rigid transition mechanism, we further design a specialized slider to achieve rapid and reversible zipping interactions. This slider serves as the basis for three actuation methods—manual, dynamic mechanical, and static mechanical—which enable both remote control and automated closure and release. In addition, Y-zipper provides four motion primitives: straight, bend, coil, and screw, whose combinations extend the flex–rigid transition mechanism to spatial curve structures. To support customization, we develop a computational design tool that automatically generates zipper geometry based on input primitives, unfolds the structure for 3D printing, and embeds both teeth and compliant bridges. Controlled experiments evaluate its mechanical properties, repeatability, and actuation speed, demonstrating robustness and reliability. Finally, we showcase a series of functional prototypes, including a medical wrist brace, a kinetic art installation, and a rapidly deployable tent structure.

Figure 1: We conducted a Virtual Reality driving simulation study to explore interactions between a human driver and an autonomous vehicle at traffic intersections in a pseudo-naturalistic setting to understand the influence of contingent driving behaviors in different contexts (two of four scenarios shown above).

Diffusion models have surpassed Generative Adversarial Networks in generating high-quality, high-resolution images, enhancing detail and diversity. However, diffusion models still demand significant time and computational resources. Current work indicates that the quality of generated images is tied to sampling time steps, with each phase in the generation process affecting training and output differently. To address this challenge, this study introduces evolutionary algorithms to optimize the sequence of time-step sampling probabilities within the training phase of diffusion models. Due to traditional sampling probability sequences involving floating points and high dimensions, this paper simplifies the search space and redefines the search objectives of the evolutionary algorithm, making the search process more efficient. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method not only speeds up the training process of diffusion models but also reveals that effective time step sampling probability sequences from adjacent training phases have similar distributions, indicating that a stable sequence of time steps exists that can consistently accelerate network convergence throughout extensive training phases. These findings not only enhance training efficiency but also reduce computational costs while maintaining the quality of generated images. The source code is available in the GitHub repository: https://github.com/zhangbeibei00/O2TDM.

Continuum robots, known for their compliance in unstructured environments, face limitations due to the lack of rotational degrees of freedom (DOFs) about the backbone. This prevents them from compensating undesired torsional deformation and performing 6-DOF control of the end-effector, thereby restricting their mobility. This paper presents a continuum robot with integrated dual rotational DOFs. One is integrated at the arm base to compensate for torsional deformation caused by external loads, while the other one, located at the arm tip, enables full 6-DOF control of the end-effector. To control the robot, a screw-theory-based kinematic model and a kinematic control framework are proposed to enable real-time, simultaneous control of the end-effector’s position and orientation. Experimental results show that the arm base rotational joint can fully compensate for undesired torsional deformation caused by a 1000 g payload. Thanks to the arm tip’s DOF and the proposed kinematic control framework, the robot’s end-effector can maintain a constant orientation while achieving open-loop path-tracking errors of only 3.3% of the arm’s length (930 mm), and successfully executing valve-closing tasks with coordinated 6-DOF motion, demonstrating the robot’s potential for industrial maintenance, human-robot interaction, and confined-space manipulation.

Landscape painting is a gem of cultural and artistic heritage that showcases the splendor of nature through the deep observations and imaginations of its painters. Limited by traditional techniques, these artworks were confined to static imagery in ancient times, leaving the dynamism of landscapes and the subtleties of artistic sentiment to the viewer's imagination. Recently, emerging text-to-video (T2V) diffusion methods have shown significant promise in video generation, providing hope for the creation of dynamic landscape paintings. However, current T2V methods focus on generating natural videos, emphasizing the capture of details and the authenticity of physical laws. In contrast, landscape painting videos emphasize the overall dynamic aesthetic. Besides, challenges, such as the lack of specific datasets, the intricacy of artistic styles, and the creation of extensive, high-quality videos pose difficulties for these models in generating landscape painting videos. In this article, we propose landscape painting videos-high definition (LPV-HD), a novel T2V dataset for landscape painting videos, and noise-aware diffusion model (NADM), a T2V model that utilizes Stable Diffusion. Specifically, we present a motion module featuring a dual attention mechanism to capture the dynamic transformations of landscape imageries, alongside a noise adapter to leverage unsupervised contrastive learning in the latent space to ensure the overall beauty of the landscape painting video. Following the generation of keyframes, we employ optical flow for frame interpolation to enhance video smoothness. Our method not only retains the essence of the landscape painting imageries but also achieves dynamic transitions, significantly advancing the field of artistic video generation. Source code and dataset are available at https://github.com/llzlh21/NADM.

Nonlinear systems, such as robotic systems, play an increasingly important role in our modern daily life and have become more dominant in many industries; however, robotic control still faces various challenges due to diverse and unstructured work environments. This article proposes a double-loop recurrent neural network (DLRNN) with the support of a Type-2 fuzzy system and a self-organizing mechanism for improved performance in nonlinear dynamic robot control. The proposed network has a double-loop recurrent structure, which enables better dynamic mapping. In addition, the network combines a Type-2 fuzzy system with a double-loop recurrent structure to improve the ability to deal with uncertain environments. To achieve an efficient system response, a self-organizing mechanism is proposed to adaptively adjust the number of layers in a DLRNN. This work integrates the proposed network into a conventional sliding mode control (SMC) system to theoretically and empirically prove its stability. The proposed system is applied to a three-joint robot manipulator, leading to a comparative study that considers several existing control approaches. The experimental results confirm the superiority of the proposed system and its effectiveness and robustness in response to various external system disturbances.

Interacting with pedestrians understandably and efficiently is one of the toughest challenges faced by autonomous vehicles (AVs) due to the limitations of current algorithms and external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs). In this paper, we design eHMIs based on gestures inspired by the most popular method of interaction between pedestrians and human drivers. Eight common gestures were selected to convey AVs’ yielding or non-yielding intentions at uncontrolled crosswalks from previous literature. Through a VR experiment (N1 = 31) and a following online survey (N2 = 394), we discovered significant differences in the usability of gesture-based eHMIs compared to current eHMIs. Good gesture-based eHMIs increase the efficiency of pedestrian-AV interaction while ensuring safety. Poor gestures, however, cause misinterpretation. The underlying reasons were explored: ambiguity regarding the recipient of the signal and whether the gestures are precise, polite, and familiar to pedestrians. Based on this empirical evidence, we discuss potential opportunities and provide valuable insights into developing comprehensible gesture-based eHMIs in the future to support better interaction between AVs and other road users.

Approximation biases of value functions are considered a key problem in reinforcement learning (RL). In particular, existing RL algorithms are hindered by overestimation and underestimation biases, i.e., value mismatching between RL's actual returns and action-value approximations limits the performance of RL algorithms. In this article, we first develop a new synthesis loss function for RL's action-value estimation integrating a regularization term and a modified "clipped double Q-learning" structure for solving overestimation and underestimation biases. To minimize the differences between action-value estimations and actual returns in RL, we develop a new discrepancy function to determine the type and magnitude of approximation biases. Then, two coefficients embedded in the synthesis loss are automatically tuned by minimizing the discrepancy function during training to minimize approximation biases. We further design a new actor-critic (AC) algorithm, named AC with synthesis loss (ACSL), by integrating the synthesis loss function and an error-controlled mechanism. Experimental results on continuous control tasks illustrate that the proposed ACSL algorithm outperforms other cutting-edge RL methods in many tasks and that the proposed synthesis loss function is easily implemented into other algorithms and significantly reduces approximation biases while improving performance. The proposed method can successfully handle many complex continuous control tasks and can greatly outperform other state-of-the-art algorithms on most tasks.

The writing sequence of numerals or letters often affects aesthetic aspects of the writing outcomes. As such, it remains a challenge for robotic calligraphy systems to perform, mimicking human writers' implicit intention. This article presents a new robot calligraphy system that is able to learn writing sequences with limited sequential information, producing writing results compatible to human writers with good diversity. In particular, the system innovatively applies a gated recurrent unit (GRU) network to generate robotic writing actions with the support of a prelabeled trajectory sequence vector. Also, a new evaluation method is proposed that considers the shape, trajectory sequence, and structural information of the writing outcome, thereby helping ensure the writing quality. A swarm optimization algorithm is exploited to create an optimal set of parameters of the proposed system. The proposed approach is evaluated using Arabic numerals, and the experimental results demonstrate the competitive writing performance of the system against state-of-the-art approaches regarding multiple criteria (including FID, MAE, PSNR, SSIM, and PerLoss), as well as diversity performance concerning variance and entropy. Importantly, the proposed GRU-based robotic motion planning system, supported with swarm optimization can learn from a small dataset, while producing calligraphy writing with diverse and aesthetically pleasing outcomes.

Learning calligraphy writing skills in robots is regarded as a sophisticated task. Current robotic researchers have proposed many methods to implement various robotic calligraphy systems. However, several limitations of these methods, such as high computational costs and few diversities of generated results constrain the development of calligraphy robots. This article proposes a robotic writing framework based on a robotic hand–eye coordination method to solve these limitations. Inspired by the internal model control (IMC) system, a vision-motor network and a motor-vision network are built to simulate the direct and reverse models, respectively, in the IMC system of a robotic manipulator. The vision-motor network works as an action generator to convert image inputs to robotic actions, and the motor-vision network assists in the training of the vision-motor network. Thus, a pretraining of the motor-vision network is established by random writing movements of a robotic manipulator. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can successfully write strokes of Chinese characters by inputting target stroke images. Although the proposed method is applied to robotic calligraphy, the underpinning research is readily applicable to many other applications, such as human–robot motion mimicking.

Information access is one of the most significant challenges faced by d/Deaf signers due to a lack of sign language information. Given the challenges in machine-driven solutions, we seek to understand how d/Deaf communities can support the growth of sign language content. Based on interviews with 12 d/Deaf people in China, we found that d/Deaf videos, i.e., sign language videos created by and for d/Deaf people, can be crucial information sources and educational materials. Combining content analysis of 360 d/Deaf videos to better understand this type of video, we show how d/Deaf communities co-create information accessibility through collaboration in content creation online. We uncover two major challenges that creators need to address, e.g., difficulties in interpretation and inconsistent content qualities. We propose potential design opportunities and future research directions to support d/Deaf people’s needs for sign language content through collaboration within d/Deaf communities.

Despite recent advances in video-guided robotic imitation learning, many methods still rely on human experts to provide sparse rewards that indicate whether robots have successfully completed tasks. The challenge of enabling robots to autonomously evaluate whether their actions can complete complex, multi-stage tasks remains unresolved. In this work, we propose an efficient few-shot robotic learning algorithm that centres around learning and evaluating from a third-person perspective to address the aforementioned challenge. We develop a novel Siamese neural network-based robotic action-state evaluation system, named “Behavior-Outcome Dual Assessment” (BODA), in our robotic imitation learning system, so as to replace artificial evaluations from human experts in multi-stage imitation learning processes and to improve learning efficiency. In this way, one video demonstration of a target task is divided into several stages. For each stage, we design two Siamese neural network-based evaluation modules in BODA: One module focuses on action changes, and the other handles working environment changes. The two modules work together to provide a comprehensive assessment of the robot's completion of each stage from the view of both the action and working environment changes. Then, BODA is integrated within a model-based reinforcement learning framework to enable the completion of our imitation learning cycle. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the evaluation processes of BODA can automatically and accurately evaluate task completion status without human intervention. In contrast to conventional methods, BODA is able to keep the accumulation of errors within acceptable limits through self-assessment in stages.

This study proposes an efficient intelligent control structure for uncertain nonlinear systems. The controller is implemented by a sliding mode control framework including a modified broad leaning network (BLS) with a double-loop recurrent structure. In addition, the proposed BLS involves a self-organizing mechanism to increase or decrease the size of the BLS. The technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is used to build the self-organizing mechanism. Moreover, two dynamic thresholds of TOPSIS are automatically determined according to the stability of the controller. One dynamic threshold is used to consider whether to retain or remove existing network neurons in the BLS; and the other is used to generate new neurons, so as to meet the requirements of different control states and save computing resources. To improve the network's dynamic characteristics, a double-loop recurrent structure is further introduced into the self-organizing BLS. The Lyapunov stability function is used to ensure the stability of the control system. The proposed controller is applied to the simulation control of a nonlinear chaotic system and a three-link robot manipulator. The experimental results show that the proposed controller can achieve better control performance against other network-based controllers. The source code of this work is placed at https://github.com/wzhuang-xmu/SODLRBLS

Oracle Bone Inscription (OBI) is an early hieroglyph in China, which is the most famous ancient writing system in the world. However, only a small number of OBI characters have been fully deciphered today. Chinese characters have different forms in different historical stages; therefore, it is very difficult to directly translate OBI characters to modern Chinese characters due to the long historic evolutionary process. In this paper, we propose a cascade generative adversarial networks (GAN) framework for deciphering OBI characters, named "Sundial-GAN'', which is a cascaded structure to simulate Chinese characters' evolutionary process from an OBI character to its potential modern Chinese character. We select four representative stages in the evolutionary process of OBI, each of which is implemented by an individual GAN structure based on the characteristics of each evolutionary stage. These structures are cascaded in sequence to accurately simulate the Chinese characters' evolutionary process. For each input OBI character, Sundial-GAN can successfully generate the input's different forms at the four historical stages. Extensive experiments and comparisons demonstrate that generated characters at each stage have high similarities with real existing characters; therefore, the proposed method can significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of OBI deciphering for archaeological researchers. Compared to direct image-to-image translation methods, our approach allows for a smoother translation process, a better grasp of details, and more effective avoiding random mappings in GANs.

It has been a challenging task for a robotic arm to accurately reach and grasp objects, which has drawn much research attention. This article proposes a robotic hand-eye coordination system by simulating the human behavior pattern to achieve a fast and robust reaching ability. This is achieved by two neural-network-based controllers, including a rough reaching movement controller implemented by a pretrained radial basis function for rough reaching movements, and a correction movement controller built from a specifically designed brain emotional nesting network (BENN) for smooth correction movements. In particular, the proposed BENN is designed with high nonlinear mapping ability, with its adaptive laws derived from the Lyapunov stability theorem; from this, the robust tracking performance and accordingly the stability of the proposed control system are guaranteed by the utilization of the H∞control approach. The proposed BENN is validated and evaluated by a chaos synchronization simulation, and the overall control system by object grasping tasks through a physical robotic arm in a real-world environment. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed control system in reference to those with single neural networks.

This paper proposes a self-organizing control system for uncertain nonlinear systems. The proposed neural network is composed of a conventional brain emotional learning network (BEL) and a cerebellar model articulation controller network (CMAC). The input value of the network is feed to a BEL channel and a CMAC channel. The output of the network is generated by the comprehensive action of the two channels. The structure of the network is dynamic, using a self-organizing algorithm allows increasing or decreasing weight layers. The parameters of the proposed network are on-line tuned by the brain emotional learning rules; the updating rules of CMAC and the robust controller are derived from the Lyapunov function; in addition, stability analysis theory is used to guaranty the proposed controller's convergence. A simulated mobile robot is applied to prove the effectiveness of the proposed control system. By comparing with the performance of other neural-network-based control systems, the proposed network produces better performance.

Aiming at the data transmission demand of large space information network, we propose a network bandwidth scheduling mechanism based on credit value sorting for FC-AE-1553 network based on passive optical network technology. The business types of FC-AE-1553 network include cyclical business, strong timeliness business and burst business. In this paper, a multi service FC network simulation platform is constructed, and the scheduling mechanism is analyzed by combining theoretical analysis with simulation development. The results show that, under the typical working condition at the 32 nodes, the network throughput can reach 3.44Gbps, the average time delay of the burst traffic is 58ms, and the average time delay of the strong timeliness burst service is 23us.