# Continual Learning from Synthetic Data for a Humanoid Exercise Robot

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.10034 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10034/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Feb 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [Continual Lifelong Learning with Neural Networks: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07569/) (2018)
- [OpenPose: Realtime Multi-Person 2D Pose Estimation using Part Affinity Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.08008/) (2018)
- [RMPE: Regional Multi-person Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00137/) (2016)
- [DeepPose: Human Pose Estimation via Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.4659/) (2013)
- [Deep Learning-Based Human Pose Estimation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.13392/) (2020)
- [Lifelong Learning of Spatiotemporal Representations with Dual-Memory Recurrent Self-Organization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.10966/) (2018)
- [A Deep Learning Framework for Assessing Physical Rehabilitation Exercises](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.10435/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [FFPDG: Fast, Fair and Private Data Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.00161/) (2023)
- [Learning Citywide Patterns of Life from Trajectory Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.15352/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In order to detect and correct physical exercises, a Grow-When-Required Network (GWR) with recurrent connections, episodic memory and a novel subnode mechanism is developed in order to learn spatiotemporal relationships of body movements and poses. Once an exercise is performed, the information of pose and movement per frame is stored in the GWR. For every frame, the current pose and motion pair is compared against a predicted output of the GWR, allowing for feedback not only on the pose but also on the velocity of the motion. In a practical scenario, a physical exercise is performed by an expert like a physiotherapist and then used as a reference for a humanoid robot like Pepper to give feedback on a patient's execution of the same exercise. This approach, however, comes with two challenges. First, the distance from the humanoid robot and the position of the user in the camera's view of the humanoid robot have to be considered by the GWR as well, requiring a robustness against the user's positioning in the field of view of the humanoid robot. Second, since both the pose and motion are dependent on the body measurements of the original performer, the expert's exercise cannot be easily used as a reference. This paper tackles the first challenge by designing an architecture that allows for tolerances in translation and rotations regarding the center of the field of view. For the second challenge, we allow the GWR to grow online on incremental data. For evaluation, we created a novel exercise dataset with virtual avatars called the Virtual-Squat dataset. Overall, we claim that our novel architecture based on the GWR can use a learned exercise reference for different body variations through continual online learning, while preventing catastrophic forgetting, enabling for an engaging long-term human-robot interaction with a humanoid robot.