24,590 research outputs found
Deep R-Learning for Continual Area Sweeping
This publication is by UT affiliates that was featured in the October Good Systems Network Digest in 2020.Office of the VP for Researc
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Deep R learning for continual area sweeping
In order to maintain robustness, autonomous robots need to constantly update their knowledge of the environment, which can be expensive when they are deployed in large, dynamic spaces. The continual area sweeping task formalizes the problem of a robot continually patrolling an area in a non-uniform way in order to efficiently use travel time. However, the existing problem formulation makes strong assumptions about the environment, and to date only a sub-optimal greedy approach has been proposed. We generalize the continual area sweeping formulation to include fewer environmental constraints, and propose a novel reinforcement learning approach. We evaluate our approach in an abstract simulation and in a high fidelity Gazebo simulation, which shows significant improvement upon the initial approach in general settingsComputational Science, Engineering, and Mathematic
Temporal-Logic-Based Reward Shaping for Continuing Learning Tasks
In continuing tasks, average-reward reinforcement learning may be a more
appropriate problem formulation than the more common discounted reward
formulation. As usual, learning an optimal policy in this setting typically
requires a large amount of training experiences. Reward shaping is a common
approach for incorporating domain knowledge into reinforcement learning in
order to speed up convergence to an optimal policy. However, to the best of our
knowledge, the theoretical properties of reward shaping have thus far only been
established in the discounted setting. This paper presents the first reward
shaping framework for average-reward learning and proves that, under standard
assumptions, the optimal policy under the original reward function can be
recovered. In order to avoid the need for manual construction of the shaping
function, we introduce a method for utilizing domain knowledge expressed as a
temporal logic formula. The formula is automatically translated to a shaping
function that provides additional reward throughout the learning process. We
evaluate the proposed method on three continuing tasks. In all cases, shaping
speeds up the average-reward learning rate without any reduction in the
performance of the learned policy compared to relevant baselines
Defining a relevant architecture in South Africa
Architecture in South Africa is at a crossroads. Afteryears of repression and isolation during which contemporary architecture lost its way, there is now a desperate need for architects to respond to the social a nd cultural challenges of a society riven by massive material contrasts. Within architecture schools, a student body more representative of society than hitherto is engaged in projects which reflect the very diverse needs of the community. Central to the effectiveness of such teaching programmes is the presence of teachers fully engaged in practice, creating a responsible architecture fora renewed nation
If deep learning is the answer, then what is the question?
Neuroscience research is undergoing a minor revolution. Recent advances in
machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) research have opened up new
ways of thinking about neural computation. Many researchers are excited by the
possibility that deep neural networks may offer theories of perception,
cognition and action for biological brains. This perspective has the potential
to radically reshape our approach to understanding neural systems, because the
computations performed by deep networks are learned from experience, not
endowed by the researcher. If so, how can neuroscientists use deep networks to
model and understand biological brains? What is the outlook for neuroscientists
who seek to characterise computations or neural codes, or who wish to
understand perception, attention, memory, and executive functions? In this
Perspective, our goal is to offer a roadmap for systems neuroscience research
in the age of deep learning. We discuss the conceptual and methodological
challenges of comparing behaviour, learning dynamics, and neural representation
in artificial and biological systems. We highlight new research questions that
have emerged for neuroscience as a direct consequence of recent advances in
machine learning.Comment: 4 Figures, 17 Page
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