4,008 research outputs found
A study of two complementary encoding strategies based on learning by demonstration for autonomous navigation task
Learning by demonstration is a natural and interactive way of learning which can be used by non-experts to teach behaviors to robots. In this paper we study two learning by demon- stration strategies which give different an- swers about how to encode information and when to learn. The first strategy is based on artificial Neural Networks and focuses on reactive on-line learning. The second one uses Gaussian Mixture Models built on statistical features extracted off-line from several training datasets. A simple navigation experiment is used to compare the developmental possibilities of each strategy. Finally, they appear to be complementary and we will highlight that each one can be related to a specific memory structure in brain
DRLViz: Understanding Decisions and Memory in Deep Reinforcement Learning
We present DRLViz, a visual analytics interface to interpret the internal
memory of an agent (e.g. a robot) trained using deep reinforcement learning.
This memory is composed of large temporal vectors updated when the agent moves
in an environment and is not trivial to understand due to the number of
dimensions, dependencies to past vectors, spatial/temporal correlations, and
co-correlation between dimensions. It is often referred to as a black box as
only inputs (images) and outputs (actions) are intelligible for humans. Using
DRLViz, experts are assisted to interpret decisions using memory reduction
interactions, and to investigate the role of parts of the memory when errors
have been made (e.g. wrong direction). We report on DRLViz applied in the
context of video games simulators (ViZDoom) for a navigation scenario with item
gathering tasks. We also report on experts evaluation using DRLViz, and
applicability of DRLViz to other scenarios and navigation problems beyond
simulation games, as well as its contribution to black box models
interpretability and explainability in the field of visual analytics
Rhythmic Representations: Learning Periodic Patterns for Scalable Place Recognition at a Sub-Linear Storage Cost
Robotic and animal mapping systems share many challenges and characteristics:
they must function in a wide variety of environmental conditions, enable the
robot or animal to navigate effectively to find food or shelter, and be
computationally tractable from both a speed and storage perspective. With
regards to map storage, the mammalian brain appears to take a diametrically
opposed approach to all current robotic mapping systems. Where robotic mapping
systems attempt to solve the data association problem to minimise
representational aliasing, neurons in the brain intentionally break data
association by encoding large (potentially unlimited) numbers of places with a
single neuron. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on supervised
learning techniques that seeks out regularly repeating visual patterns in the
environment with mutually complementary co-prime frequencies, and an encoding
scheme that enables storage requirements to grow sub-linearly with the size of
the environment being mapped. To improve robustness in challenging real-world
environments while maintaining storage growth sub-linearity, we incorporate
both multi-exemplar learning and data augmentation techniques. Using large
benchmark robotic mapping datasets, we demonstrate the combined system
achieving high-performance place recognition with sub-linear storage
requirements, and characterize the performance-storage growth trade-off curve.
The work serves as the first robotic mapping system with sub-linear storage
scaling properties, as well as the first large-scale demonstration in
real-world environments of one of the proposed memory benefits of these
neurons.Comment: Pre-print of article that will appear in the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Letter
Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects
While monolithic satellite missions still pose significant advantages in terms of accuracy and
operations, novel distributed architectures are promising improved flexibility, responsiveness,
and adaptability to structural and functional changes. Large satellite swarms, opportunistic satellite
networks or heterogeneous constellations hybridizing small-spacecraft nodes with highperformance
satellites are becoming feasible and advantageous alternatives requiring the adoption
of new operation paradigms that enhance their autonomy. While autonomy is a notion that
is gaining acceptance in monolithic satellite missions, it can also be deemed an integral characteristic
in Distributed Satellite Systems (DSS). In this context, this paper focuses on the motivations
for system-level autonomy in DSS and justifies its need as an enabler of system qualities. Autonomy
is also presented as a necessary feature to bring new distributed Earth observation functions
(which require coordination and collaboration mechanisms) and to allow for novel structural
functions (e.g., opportunistic coalitions, exchange of resources, or in-orbit data services). Mission
Planning and Scheduling (MPS) frameworks are then presented as a key component to implement
autonomous operations in satellite missions. An exhaustive knowledge classification explores the
design aspects of MPS for DSS, and conceptually groups them into: components and organizational
paradigms; problem modeling and representation; optimization techniques and metaheuristics;
execution and runtime characteristics and the notions of tasks, resources, and constraints.
This paper concludes by proposing future strands of work devoted to study the trade-offs of
autonomy in large-scale, highly dynamic and heterogeneous networks through frameworks that
consider some of the limitations of small spacecraft technologies.Postprint (author's final draft
Leveraging Demonstrations with Latent Space Priors
Demonstrations provide insight into relevant state or action space regions,
bearing great potential to boost the efficiency and practicality of
reinforcement learning agents. In this work, we propose to leverage
demonstration datasets by combining skill learning and sequence modeling.
Starting with a learned joint latent space, we separately train a generative
model of demonstration sequences and an accompanying low-level policy. The
sequence model forms a latent space prior over plausible demonstration
behaviors to accelerate learning of high-level policies. We show how to acquire
such priors from state-only motion capture demonstrations and explore several
methods for integrating them into policy learning on transfer tasks. Our
experimental results confirm that latent space priors provide significant gains
in learning speed and final performance. We benchmark our approach on a set of
challenging sparse-reward environments with a complex, simulated humanoid, and
on offline RL benchmarks for navigation and object manipulation. Videos, source
code and pre-trained models are available at the corresponding project website
at https://facebookresearch.github.io/latent-space-priors .Comment: Published in Transactions on Machine Learning Research (03/2023
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