arXiv subjects

Zhaorui Meng

Publications and source records attributed to Zhaorui Meng.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Distinguishing Imitation Error from Intrinsic Motion Learning Difficulty

Physics-based motion imitation is central to humanoid control, yet current evaluation metrics (e.g., MPJPE) only quantify imitation outcomes, not their underlying causes. This conflation obscures a critical diagnostic question: when imitation error occurs, does it stem from policy limitations or the intrinsic learning difficulty of the target motion? To resolve this ambiguity, we propose the Torque Variation Score (TVS), a physics-grounded metric that quantifies the inherent learning difficulty of a motion independently of any policy's performance. TVS measures the magnitude of torque variation required to correct small pose perturbations, directly capturing how dynamical properties shape the reinforcement learning landscape. We establish that high-TV motions induce flat reward landscapes and vanishing policy gradients, explaining persistent imitation failures. Extensive experiments with state-of-the-art methods (UHC, PHC+) confirm TVS strongly correlates with imitation error and enables principled error attribution: high error on low-TV motions indicates policy deficiency, while high error on high-TV motions reflects fundamental learning constraints. Beyond error diagnosis, TVS facilitates three practical applications: Maximum Imitable Difficulty (MID) for policy capability assessment, Difficulty-Stratified Joint Error (DSJE) for granular performance profiling, and Flawed Motion Detection for identifying segments with abnormally high learning difficulty to support mocap data curation and quality control. TVS provides a rigorous lens to distinguish policy-induced errors from motion-inherent challenges and enhances motion dataset reliability.

cs.GR↗

arXiv2025

Improving Sparse IMU-based Motion Capture with Motion Label Smoothing

Sparse Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) based human motion capture has gained significant momentum, driven by the adaptation of fundamental AI tools such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and transformers that are tailored for temporal and spatial modeling. Despite these achievements, current research predominantly focuses on pipeline and architectural designs, with comparatively little attention given to regularization methods, highlighting a critical gap in developing a comprehensive AI toolkit for this task. To bridge this gap, we propose motion label smoothing, a novel method that adapts the classic label smoothing strategy from classification to the sparse IMU-based motion capture task. Specifically, we first demonstrate that a naive adaptation of label smoothing, including simply blending a uniform vector or a ``uniform'' motion representation (e.g., dataset-average motion or a canonical T-pose), is suboptimal; and argue that a proper adaptation requires increasing the entropy of the smoothed labels. Second, we conduct a thorough analysis of human motion labels, identifying three critical properties: 1) Temporal Smoothness, 2) Joint Correlation, and 3) Low-Frequency Dominance, and show that conventional approaches to entropy enhancement (e.g., blending Gaussian noise) are ineffective as they disrupt these properties. Finally, we propose the blend of a novel skeleton-based Perlin noise for motion label smoothing, designed to raise label entropy while satisfying motion properties. Extensive experiments applying our motion label smoothing to three state-of-the-art methods across four real-world IMU datasets demonstrate its effectiveness and robust generalization (plug-and-play) capability.

cs.GR↗