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78 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2017

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Multi-Modal Imitation Learning from Unstructured Demonstrations using Generative Adversarial Nets

Hausman, K., Chebotar, Y., Schaal, S., Sukhatme, G., Lim, J.

In Proceedings from the conference "Neural Information Processing Systems 2017., (Editors: Guyon I. and Luxburg U.v. and Bengio S. and Wallach H. and Fergus R. and Vishwanathan S. and Garnett R.), Curran Associates, Inc., Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30 (NIPS), December 2017 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

2017

Hausman, K., Chebotar, Y., Schaal, S., Sukhatme, G., Lim, J. Multi-Modal Imitation Learning from Unstructured Demonstrations using Generative Adversarial Nets In Proceedings from the conference "Neural Information Processing Systems 2017., (Editors: Guyon I. and Luxburg U.v. and Bengio S. and Wallach H. and Fergus R. and Vishwanathan S. and Garnett R.), Curran Associates, Inc., Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30 (NIPS), December 2017 (inproceedings)

pdf video [BibTex]

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On the Design of LQR Kernels for Efficient Controller Learning

Marco, A., Hennig, P., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S.

Proceedings of the 56th IEEE Annual Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), pages: 5193-5200, IEEE, IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, December 2017 (conference)

Abstract
Finding optimal feedback controllers for nonlinear dynamic systems from data is hard. Recently, Bayesian optimization (BO) has been proposed as a powerful framework for direct controller tuning from experimental trials. For selecting the next query point and finding the global optimum, BO relies on a probabilistic description of the latent objective function, typically a Gaussian process (GP). As is shown herein, GPs with a common kernel choice can, however, lead to poor learning outcomes on standard quadratic control problems. For a first-order system, we construct two kernels that specifically leverage the structure of the well-known Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), yet retain the flexibility of Bayesian nonparametric learning. Simulations of uncertain linear and nonlinear systems demonstrate that the LQR kernels yield superior learning performance.

arXiv PDF On the Design of LQR Kernels for Efficient Controller Learning - CDC presentation DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Marco, A., Hennig, P., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S. On the Design of LQR Kernels for Efficient Controller Learning Proceedings of the 56th IEEE Annual Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), pages: 5193-5200, IEEE, IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, December 2017 (conference)

arXiv PDF On the Design of LQR Kernels for Efficient Controller Learning - CDC presentation DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Optimizing Long-term Predictions for Model-based Policy Search

Doerr, A., Daniel, C., Nguyen-Tuong, D., Marco, A., Schaal, S., Toussaint, M., Trimpe, S.

Proceedings of 1st Annual Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 78, pages: 227-238, (Editors: Sergey Levine and Vincent Vanhoucke and Ken Goldberg), 1st Annual Conference on Robot Learning, November 2017 (conference)

Abstract
We propose a novel long-term optimization criterion to improve the robustness of model-based reinforcement learning in real-world scenarios. Learning a dynamics model to derive a solution promises much greater data-efficiency and reusability compared to model-free alternatives. In practice, however, modelbased RL suffers from various imperfections such as noisy input and output data, delays and unmeasured (latent) states. To achieve higher resilience against such effects, we propose to optimize a generative long-term prediction model directly with respect to the likelihood of observed trajectories as opposed to the common approach of optimizing a dynamics model for one-step-ahead predictions. We evaluate the proposed method on several artificial and real-world benchmark problems and compare it to PILCO, a model-based RL framework, in experiments on a manipulation robot. The results show that the proposed method is competitive compared to state-of-the-art model learning methods. In contrast to these more involved models, our model can directly be employed for policy search and outperforms a baseline method in the robot experiment.

PDF Project Page [BibTex]

Doerr, A., Daniel, C., Nguyen-Tuong, D., Marco, A., Schaal, S., Toussaint, M., Trimpe, S. Optimizing Long-term Predictions for Model-based Policy Search Proceedings of 1st Annual Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 78, pages: 227-238, (Editors: Sergey Levine and Vincent Vanhoucke and Ken Goldberg), 1st Annual Conference on Robot Learning, November 2017 (conference)

PDF Project Page [BibTex]

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Learning optimal gait parameters and impedance profiles for legged locomotion

Heijmink, E., Radulescu, A., Ponton, B., Barasuol, V., Caldwell, D., Semini, C.

Proceedings International Conference on Humanoid Robots, IEEE, 2017 IEEE-RAS 17th International Conference on Humanoid Robots, November 2017 (conference)

Abstract
The successful execution of complex modern robotic tasks often relies on the correct tuning of a large number of parameters. In this paper we present a methodology for improving the performance of a trotting gait by learning the gait parameters, impedance profile and the gains of the control architecture. We show results on a set of terrains, for various speeds using a realistic simulation of a hydraulically actuated system. Our method achieves a reduction in the gait's mechanical energy consumption during locomotion of up to 26%. The simulation results are validated in experimental trials on the hardware system.

paper [BibTex]

Heijmink, E., Radulescu, A., Ponton, B., Barasuol, V., Caldwell, D., Semini, C. Learning optimal gait parameters and impedance profiles for legged locomotion Proceedings International Conference on Humanoid Robots, IEEE, 2017 IEEE-RAS 17th International Conference on Humanoid Robots, November 2017 (conference)

paper [BibTex]

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A New Data Source for Inverse Dynamics Learning

Kappler, D., Meier, F., Ratliff, N., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), September 2017 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Kappler, D., Meier, F., Ratliff, N., Schaal, S. A New Data Source for Inverse Dynamics Learning In Proceedings IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), September 2017 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Bayesian Regression for Artifact Correction in Electroencephalography

Fiebig, K., Jayaram, V., Hesse, T., Blank, A., Peters, J., Grosse-Wentrup, M.

Proceedings of the 7th Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference 2017 - From Vision to Reality, pages: 131-136, (Editors: Müller-Putz G.R., Steyrl D., Wriessnegger S. C., Scherer R.), Graz University of Technology, Austria, Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference, September 2017 (conference)

DOI [BibTex]

Fiebig, K., Jayaram, V., Hesse, T., Blank, A., Peters, J., Grosse-Wentrup, M. Bayesian Regression for Artifact Correction in Electroencephalography Proceedings of the 7th Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference 2017 - From Vision to Reality, pages: 131-136, (Editors: Müller-Putz G.R., Steyrl D., Wriessnegger S. C., Scherer R.), Graz University of Technology, Austria, Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference, September 2017 (conference)

DOI [BibTex]

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Investigating Music Imagery as a Cognitive Paradigm for Low-Cost Brain-Computer Interfaces

Grossberger, L., Hohmann, M. R., Peters, J., Grosse-Wentrup, M.

Proceedings of the 7th Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference 2017 - From Vision to Reality, pages: 160-164, (Editors: Müller-Putz G.R., Steyrl D., Wriessnegger S. C., Scherer R.), Graz University of Technology, Austria, Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference, September 2017 (conference)

DOI [BibTex]

Grossberger, L., Hohmann, M. R., Peters, J., Grosse-Wentrup, M. Investigating Music Imagery as a Cognitive Paradigm for Low-Cost Brain-Computer Interfaces Proceedings of the 7th Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference 2017 - From Vision to Reality, pages: 160-164, (Editors: Müller-Putz G.R., Steyrl D., Wriessnegger S. C., Scherer R.), Graz University of Technology, Austria, Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference, September 2017 (conference)

DOI [BibTex]

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On the relevance of grasp metrics for predicting grasp success

Rubert, C., Kappler, D., Morales, A., Schaal, S., Bohg, J.

In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference of Intelligent Robots and Systems, September 2017 (inproceedings) Accepted

Abstract
We aim to reliably predict whether a grasp on a known object is successful before it is executed in the real world. There is an entire suite of grasp metrics that has already been developed which rely on precisely known contact points between object and hand. However, it remains unclear whether and how they may be combined into a general purpose grasp stability predictor. In this paper, we analyze these questions by leveraging a large scale database of simulated grasps on a wide variety of objects. For each grasp, we compute the value of seven metrics. Each grasp is annotated by human subjects with ground truth stability labels. Given this data set, we train several classification methods to find out whether there is some underlying, non-trivial structure in the data that is difficult to model manually but can be learned. Quantitative and qualitative results show the complexity of the prediction problem. We found that a good prediction performance critically depends on using a combination of metrics as input features. Furthermore, non-parametric and non-linear classifiers best capture the structure in the data.

Project Page [BibTex]

Rubert, C., Kappler, D., Morales, A., Schaal, S., Bohg, J. On the relevance of grasp metrics for predicting grasp success In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference of Intelligent Robots and Systems, September 2017 (inproceedings) Accepted

Project Page [BibTex]

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Local Bayesian Optimization of Motor Skills

Akrour, R., Sorokin, D., Peters, J., Neumann, G.

Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Machine Learning, 70, pages: 41-50, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (Editors: Doina Precup, Yee Whye Teh), PMLR, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), August 2017 (conference)

link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

Akrour, R., Sorokin, D., Peters, J., Neumann, G. Local Bayesian Optimization of Motor Skills Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Machine Learning, 70, pages: 41-50, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (Editors: Doina Precup, Yee Whye Teh), PMLR, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), August 2017 (conference)

link (url) Project Page [BibTex]

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Combining Model-Based and Model-Free Updates for Trajectory-Centric Reinforcement Learning

Chebotar, Y., Hausman, K., Zhang, M., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S., Levine, S.

Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Machine Learning, 70, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (Editors: Doina Precup, Yee Whye Teh), PMLR, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), August 2017 (conference)

pdf video [BibTex]

Chebotar, Y., Hausman, K., Zhang, M., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S., Levine, S. Combining Model-Based and Model-Free Updates for Trajectory-Centric Reinforcement Learning Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Machine Learning, 70, Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (Editors: Doina Precup, Yee Whye Teh), PMLR, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), August 2017 (conference)

pdf video [BibTex]

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Model-Based Policy Search for Automatic Tuning of Multivariate PID Controllers

Doerr, A., Nguyen-Tuong, D., Marco, A., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 5295-5301, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (inproceedings)

PDF arXiv DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Doerr, A., Nguyen-Tuong, D., Marco, A., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S. Model-Based Policy Search for Automatic Tuning of Multivariate PID Controllers In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 5295-5301, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (inproceedings)

PDF arXiv DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Learning Feedback Terms for Reactive Planning and Control

Rai, A., Sutanto, G., Schaal, S., Meier, F.

Proceedings 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (conference)

pdf video [BibTex]

Rai, A., Sutanto, G., Schaal, S., Meier, F. Learning Feedback Terms for Reactive Planning and Control Proceedings 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (conference)

pdf video [BibTex]

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Virtual vs. Real: Trading Off Simulations and Physical Experiments in Reinforcement Learning with Bayesian Optimization

Marco, A., Berkenkamp, F., Hennig, P., Schoellig, A. P., Krause, A., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 1557-1563, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (inproceedings)

PDF arXiv ICRA 2017 Spotlight presentation Virtual vs. Real - Video explanation DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Marco, A., Berkenkamp, F., Hennig, P., Schoellig, A. P., Krause, A., Schaal, S., Trimpe, S. Virtual vs. Real: Trading Off Simulations and Physical Experiments in Reinforcement Learning with Bayesian Optimization In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 1557-1563, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (inproceedings)

PDF arXiv ICRA 2017 Spotlight presentation Virtual vs. Real - Video explanation DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Path Integral Guided Policy Search

Chebotar, Y., Kalakrishnan, M., Yahya, A., Li, A., Schaal, S., Levine, S.

Proceedings 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (conference)

pdf video [BibTex]

Chebotar, Y., Kalakrishnan, M., Yahya, A., Li, A., Schaal, S., Levine, S. Path Integral Guided Policy Search Proceedings 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2017 (conference)

pdf video [BibTex]

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Robot Learning

Peters, J., Lee, D., Kober, J., Nguyen-Tuong, D., Bagnell, J., Schaal, S.

In Springer Handbook of Robotics, pages: 357-394, 15, 2nd, (Editors: Siciliano, Bruno and Khatib, Oussama), Springer International Publishing, 2017 (inbook)

Project Page [BibTex]

Peters, J., Lee, D., Kober, J., Nguyen-Tuong, D., Bagnell, J., Schaal, S. Robot Learning In Springer Handbook of Robotics, pages: 357-394, 15, 2nd, (Editors: Siciliano, Bruno and Khatib, Oussama), Springer International Publishing, 2017 (inbook)

Project Page [BibTex]

2010

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Reinforcement learning of full-body humanoid motor skills

Stulp, F., Buchli, J., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on, pages: 405-410, December 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Applying reinforcement learning to humanoid robots is challenging because humanoids have a large number of degrees of freedom and state and action spaces are continuous. Thus, most reinforcement learning algorithms would become computationally infeasible and require a prohibitive amount of trials to explore such high-dimensional spaces. In this paper, we present a probabilistic reinforcement learning approach, which is derived from the framework of stochastic optimal control and path integrals. The algorithm, called Policy Improvement with Path Integrals (PI2), has a surprisingly simple form, has no open tuning parameters besides the exploration noise, is model-free, and performs numerically robustly in high dimensional learning problems. We demonstrate how PI2 is able to learn full-body motor skills on a 34-DOF humanoid robot. To demonstrate the generality of our approach, we also apply PI2 in the context of variable impedance control, where both planned trajectories and gain schedules for each joint are optimized simultaneously.

link (url) [BibTex]

2010

Stulp, F., Buchli, J., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning of full-body humanoid motor skills In Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on, pages: 405-410, December 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Enhanced Visual Scene Understanding through Human-Robot Dialog

Johnson-Roberson, M., Bohg, J., Kragic, D., Skantze, G., Gustafson, J., Carlson, R.

In Proceedings of AAAI 2010 Fall Symposium: Dialog with Robots, November 2010 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

Johnson-Roberson, M., Bohg, J., Kragic, D., Skantze, G., Gustafson, J., Carlson, R. Enhanced Visual Scene Understanding through Human-Robot Dialog In Proceedings of AAAI 2010 Fall Symposium: Dialog with Robots, November 2010 (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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Scene Representation and Object Grasping Using Active Vision

Gratal, X., Bohg, J., Björkman, M., Kragic, D.

In IROS’10 Workshop on Defining and Solving Realistic Perception Problems in Personal Robotics, October 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Object grasping and manipulation pose major challenges for perception and control and require rich interaction between these two fields. In this paper, we concentrate on the plethora of perceptual problems that have to be solved before a robot can be moved in a controlled way to pick up an object. A vision system is presented that integrates a number of different computational processes, e.g. attention, segmentation, recognition or reconstruction to incrementally build up a representation of the scene suitable for grasping and manipulation of objects. Our vision system is equipped with an active robotic head and a robot arm. This embodiment enables the robot to perform a number of different actions like saccading, fixating, and grasping. By applying these actions, the robot can incrementally build a scene representation and use it for interaction. We demonstrate our system in a scenario for picking up known objects from a table top. We also show the system’s extendibility towards grasping of unknown and familiar objects.

video pdf slides [BibTex]

Gratal, X., Bohg, J., Björkman, M., Kragic, D. Scene Representation and Object Grasping Using Active Vision In IROS’10 Workshop on Defining and Solving Realistic Perception Problems in Personal Robotics, October 2010 (inproceedings)

video pdf slides [BibTex]

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Strategies for multi-modal scene exploration

Bohg, J., Johnson-Roberson, M., Björkman, M., Kragic, D.

In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, pages: 4509-4515, October 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We propose a method for multi-modal scene exploration where initial object hypothesis formed by active visual segmentation are confirmed and augmented through haptic exploration with a robotic arm. We update the current belief about the state of the map with the detection results and predict yet unknown parts of the map with a Gaussian Process. We show that through the integration of different sensor modalities, we achieve a more complete scene model. We also show that the prediction of the scene structure leads to a valid scene representation even if the map is not fully traversed. Furthermore, we propose different exploration strategies and evaluate them both in simulation and on our robotic platform.

video pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Bohg, J., Johnson-Roberson, M., Björkman, M., Kragic, D. Strategies for multi-modal scene exploration In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, pages: 4509-4515, October 2010 (inproceedings)

video pdf DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Attention-based active 3D point cloud segmentation

Johnson-Roberson, M., Bohg, J., Björkman, M., Kragic, D.

In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, pages: 1165-1170, October 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper we present a framework for the segmentation of multiple objects from a 3D point cloud. We extend traditional image segmentation techniques into a full 3D representation. The proposed technique relies on a state-of-the-art min-cut framework to perform a fully 3D global multi-class labeling in a principled manner. Thereby, we extend our previous work in which a single object was actively segmented from the background. We also examine several seeding methods to bootstrap the graphical model-based energy minimization and these methods are compared over challenging scenes. All results are generated on real-world data gathered with an active vision robotic head. We present quantitive results over aggregate sets as well as visual results on specific examples.

pdf DOI [BibTex]

Johnson-Roberson, M., Bohg, J., Björkman, M., Kragic, D. Attention-based active 3D point cloud segmentation In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on, pages: 1165-1170, October 2010 (inproceedings)

pdf DOI [BibTex]

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Relative Entropy Policy Search

Peters, J., Mülling, K., Altun, Y.

In Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages: 1607-1612, (Editors: Fox, M. , D. Poole), AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA, USA, Twenty-Fourth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-10), July 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Policy search is a successful approach to reinforcement learning. However, policy improvements often result in the loss of information. Hence, it has been marred by premature convergence and implausible solutions. As first suggested in the context of covariant policy gradients (Bagnell and Schneider 2003), many of these problems may be addressed by constraining the information loss. In this paper, we continue this path of reasoning and suggest the Relative Entropy Policy Search (REPS) method. The resulting method differs significantly from previous policy gradient approaches and yields an exact update step. It works well on typical reinforcement learning benchmark problems.

PDF Web [BibTex]

Peters, J., Mülling, K., Altun, Y. Relative Entropy Policy Search In Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages: 1607-1612, (Editors: Fox, M. , D. Poole), AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA, USA, Twenty-Fourth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-10), July 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF Web [BibTex]

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Reinforcement learning of motor skills in high dimensions: A path integral approach

Theodorou, E., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 2397-2403, May 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Reinforcement learning (RL) is one of the most general approaches to learning control. Its applicability to complex motor systems, however, has been largely impossible so far due to the computational difficulties that reinforcement learning encounters in high dimensional continuous state-action spaces. In this paper, we derive a novel approach to RL for parameterized control policies based on the framework of stochastic optimal control with path integrals. While solidly grounded in optimal control theory and estimation theory, the update equations for learning are surprisingly simple and have no danger of numerical instabilities as neither matrix inversions nor gradient learning rates are required. Empirical evaluations demonstrate significant performance improvements over gradient-based policy learning and scalability to high-dimensional control problems. Finally, a learning experiment on a robot dog illustrates the functionality of our algorithm in a real-world scenario. We believe that our new algorithm, Policy Improvement with Path Integrals (PI2), offers currently one of the most efficient, numerically robust, and easy to implement algorithms for RL in robotics.

link (url) [BibTex]

Theodorou, E., Buchli, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning of motor skills in high dimensions: A path integral approach In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 2397-2403, May 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Inverse dynamics control of floating base systems using orthogonal decomposition

Mistry, M., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3406-3412, May 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Model-based control methods can be used to enable fast, dexterous, and compliant motion of robots without sacrificing control accuracy. However, implementing such techniques on floating base robots, e.g., humanoids and legged systems, is non-trivial due to under-actuation, dynamically changing constraints from the environment, and potentially closed loop kinematics. In this paper, we show how to compute the analytically correct inverse dynamics torques for model-based control of sufficiently constrained floating base rigid-body systems, such as humanoid robots with one or two feet in contact with the environment. While our previous inverse dynamics approach relied on an estimation of contact forces to compute an approximate inverse dynamics solution, here we present an analytically correct solution by using an orthogonal decomposition to project the robot dynamics onto a reduced dimensional space, independent of contact forces. We demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of our approach on a simulated floating base bipedal humanoid robot and an actual robot dog locomoting over rough terrain.

link (url) [BibTex]

Mistry, M., Buchli, J., Schaal, S. Inverse dynamics control of floating base systems using orthogonal decomposition In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 3406-3412, May 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Fast, robust quadruped locomotion over challenging terrain

Kalakrishnan, M., Buchli, J., Pastor, P., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.

In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 2665-2670, May 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present a control architecture for fast quadruped locomotion over rough terrain. We approach the problem by decomposing it into many sub-systems, in which we apply state-of-the-art learning, planning, optimization and control techniques to achieve robust, fast locomotion. Unique features of our control strategy include: (1) a system that learns optimal foothold choices from expert demonstration using terrain templates, (2) a body trajectory optimizer based on the Zero-Moment Point (ZMP) stability criterion, and (3) a floating-base inverse dynamics controller that, in conjunction with force control, allows for robust, compliant locomotion over unperceived obstacles. We evaluate the performance of our controller by testing it on the LittleDog quadruped robot, over a wide variety of rough terrain of varying difficulty levels. We demonstrate the generalization ability of this controller by presenting test results from an independent external test team on terrains that have never been shown to us.

link (url) [BibTex]

Kalakrishnan, M., Buchli, J., Pastor, P., Mistry, M., Schaal, S. Fast, robust quadruped locomotion over challenging terrain In Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on, pages: 2665-2670, May 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Accelerometer-based Tilt Estimation of a Rigid Body with only Rotational Degrees of Freedom

Trimpe, S., D’Andrea, R.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Trimpe, S., D’Andrea, R. Accelerometer-based Tilt Estimation of a Rigid Body with only Rotational Degrees of Freedom In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2010 (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Locally weighted regression for control

Ting, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In Encyclopedia of Machine Learning, pages: 613-624, (Editors: Sammut, C.;Webb, G. I.), Springer, 2010, clmc (inbook)

Abstract
This is article addresses two topics: learning control and locally weighted regression.

link (url) [BibTex]

Ting, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Locally weighted regression for control In Encyclopedia of Machine Learning, pages: 613-624, (Editors: Sammut, C.;Webb, G. I.), Springer, 2010, clmc (inbook)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Are reaching movements planned in kinematic or dynamic coordinates?

Ellmer, A., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Whether human reaching movements are planned and optimized in kinematic (task space) or dynamic (joint or muscle space) coordinates is still an issue of debate. The first hypothesis implies that a planner produces a desired end-effector position at each point in time during the reaching movement, whereas the latter hypothesis includes the dynamics of the muscular-skeletal control system to produce a continuous end-effector trajectory. Previous work by Wolpert et al (1995) showed that when subjects were led to believe that their straight reaching paths corresponded to curved paths as shown on a computer screen, participants adapted the true path of their hand such that they would visually perceive a straight line in visual space, despite that they actually produced a curved path. These results were interpreted as supporting the stance that reaching trajectories are planned in kinematic coordinates. However, this experiment could only demonstrate that adaptation to altered paths, i.e. the position of the end-effector, did occur, but not that the precise timing of end-effector position was equally planned, i.e., the trajectory. Our current experiment aims at filling this gap by explicitly testing whether position over time, i.e. velocity, is a property of reaching movements that is planned in kinematic coordinates. In the current experiment, the velocity profiles of cursor movements corresponding to the participant's hand motions were skewed either to the left or to the right; the path itself was left unaltered. We developed an adaptation paradigm, where the skew of the velocity profile was introduced gradually and participants reported no awareness of any manipulation. Preliminary results indicate that the true hand motion of participants did not alter, i.e. there was no adaptation so as to counterbalance the introduced skew. However, for some participants, peak hand velocities were lowered for higher skews, which suggests that participants interpreted the manipulation as mere noise due to variance in their own movement. In summary, for a visuomotor transformation task, the hypothesis of a planned continuous end-effector trajectory predicts adaptation to a modified velocity profile. The current experiment found no systematic adaptation under such transformation, but did demonstrate an effect that is more in accordance that subjects could not perceive the manipulation and rather interpreted as an increase of noise.

[BibTex]

Ellmer, A., Schaal, S. Are reaching movements planned in kinematic or dynamic coordinates? In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Optimality in Neuromuscular Systems

Theodorou, E. A., Valero-Cuevas, F.

In 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Abstract? We provide an overview of optimal control meth- ods to nonlinear neuromuscular systems and discuss their lim- itations. Moreover we extend current optimal control methods to their application to neuromuscular models with realistically numerous musculotendons; as most prior work is limited to torque-driven systems. Recent work on computational motor control has explored the used of control theory and esti- mation as a conceptual tool to understand the underlying computational principles of neuromuscular systems. After all, successful biological systems regularly meet conditions for stability, robustness and performance for multiple classes of complex tasks. Among a variety of proposed control theory frameworks to explain this, stochastic optimal control has become a dominant framework to the point of being a standard computational technique to reproduce kinematic trajectories of reaching movements (see [12]) In particular, we demonstrate the application of optimal control to a neuromuscular model of the index finger with all seven musculotendons producing a tapping task. Our simu- lations include 1) a muscle model that includes force- length and force-velocity characteristics; 2) an anatomically plausible biomechanical model of the index finger that includes a tendi- nous network for the extensor mechanism and 3) a contact model that is based on a nonlinear spring-damper attached at the end effector of the index finger. We demonstrate that it is feasible to apply optimal control to systems with realistically large state vectors and conclude that, while optimal control is an adequate formalism to create computational models of neuro- musculoskeletal systems, there remain important challenges and limitations that need to be considered and overcome such as contact transitions, curse of dimensionality, and constraints on states and controls.

PDF [BibTex]

Theodorou, E. A., Valero-Cuevas, F. Optimality in Neuromuscular Systems In 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Learning Policy Improvements with Path Integrals

Theodorou, E. A., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.

In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS 2010), 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
With the goal to generate more scalable algo- rithms with higher efficiency and fewer open parameters, reinforcement learning (RL) has recently moved towards combining classi- cal techniques from optimal control and dy- namic programming with modern learning techniques from statistical estimation the- ory. In this vein, this paper suggests the framework of stochastic optimal control with path integrals to derive a novel approach to RL with parametrized policies. While solidly grounded in value function estimation and optimal control based on the stochastic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations, policy improvements can be transformed into an approximation problem of a path inte- gral which has no open parameters other than the exploration noise. The resulting algorithm can be conceived of as model- based, semi-model-based, or even model free, depending on how the learning problem is structured. Our new algorithm demon- strates interesting similarities with previous RL research in the framework of proba- bility matching and provides intuition why the slightly heuristically motivated proba- bility matching approach can actually per- form well. Empirical evaluations demon- strate significant performance improvements over gradient-based policy learning and scal- ability to high-dimensional control problems. We believe that Policy Improvement with Path Integrals (PI2) offers currently one of the most efficient, numerically robust, and easy to implement algorithms for RL based on trajectory roll-outs.

PDF [BibTex]

Theodorou, E. A., Buchli, J., Schaal, S. Learning Policy Improvements with Path Integrals In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS 2010), 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Learning optimal control solutions: a path integral approach

Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Investigating principles of human motor control in the framework of optimal control has had a long tradition in neural control of movement, and has recently experienced a new surge of investigations. Ideally, optimal control problems are addresses as a reinforcement learning (RL) problem, which would allow to investigate both the process of acquiring an optimal control solution as well as the solution itself. Unfortunately, the applicability of RL to complex neural and biomechanics systems has been largely impossible so far due to the computational difficulties that arise in high dimensional continuous state-action spaces. As a way out, research has focussed on computing optimal control solutions based on iterative optimal control methods that are based on linear and quadratic approximations of dynamical models and cost functions. These methods require perfect knowledge of the dynamics and cost functions while they are based on gradient and Newton optimization schemes. Their applicability is also restricted to low dimensional problems due to problematic convergence in high dimensions. Moreover, the process of computing the optimal solution is removed from the learning process that might be plausible in biology. In this work, we present a new reinforcement learning method for learning optimal control solutions or motor control. This method, based on the framework of stochastic optimal control with path integrals, has a very solid theoretical foundation, while resulting in surprisingly simple learning algorithms. It is also possible to apply this approach without knowledge of the system model, and to use a wide variety of complex nonlinear cost functions for optimization. We illustrate the theoretical properties of this approach and its applicability to learning motor control tasks for reaching movements and locomotion studies. We discuss its applicability to learning desired trajectories, variable stiffness control (co-contraction), and parameterized control policies. We also investigate the applicability to signal dependent noise control systems. We believe that the suggested method offers one of the easiest to use approaches to learning optimal control suggested in the literature so far, which makes it ideally suited for computational investigations of biological motor control.

[BibTex]

Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Learning optimal control solutions: a path integral approach In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2010), Naples, Florida, 2010, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Constrained Accelerations for Controlled Geometric Reduction: Sagittal-Plane Decoupling for Bipedal Locomotion

Gregg, R., Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.

In 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 1-7, IEEE, Nashville, USA, 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Energy-shaping control methods have produced strong theoretical results for asymptotically stable 3D bipedal dynamic walking in the literature. In particular, geometric controlled reduction exploits robot symmetries to control momentum conservation laws that decouple the sagittal-plane dynamics, which are easier to stabilize. However, the associated control laws require high-dimensional matrix inverses multiplied with complicated energy-shaping terms, often making these control theories difficult to apply to highly-redundant humanoid robots. This paper presents a first step towards the application of energy-shaping methods on real robots by casting controlled reduction into a framework of constrained accelerations for inverse dynamics control. By representing momentum conservation laws as constraints in acceleration space, we construct a general expression for desired joint accelerations that render the constraint surface invariant. By appropriately choosing an orthogonal projection, we show that the unconstrained (reduced) dynamics are decoupled from the constrained dynamics. Any acceleration-based controller can then be used to stabilize this planar subsystem, including passivity-based methods. The resulting control law is surprisingly simple and represents a practical way to employ control theoretic stability results in robotic platforms. Simulated walking of a 3D compass-gait biped show correspondence between the new and original controllers, and simulated motions of a 16-DOF humanoid demonstrate the applicability of this method.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Gregg, R., Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Schaal, S. Constrained Accelerations for Controlled Geometric Reduction: Sagittal-Plane Decoupling for Bipedal Locomotion In 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 1-7, IEEE, Nashville, USA, 2010 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Variable impedance control - a reinforcement learning approach

Buchli, J., Theodorou, E., Stulp, F., Schaal, S.

In Robotics Science and Systems (2010), Zaragoza, Spain, June 27-30, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
One of the hallmarks of the performance, versatility, and robustness of biological motor control is the ability to adapt the impedance of the overall biomechanical system to different task requirements and stochastic disturbances. A transfer of this principle to robotics is desirable, for instance to enable robots to work robustly and safely in everyday human environments. It is, however, not trivial to derive variable impedance controllers for practical high DOF robotic tasks. In this contribution, we accomplish such gain scheduling with a reinforcement learning approach algorithm, PI2 (Policy Improvement with Path Integrals). PI2 is a model-free, sampling based learning method derived from first principles of optimal control. The PI2 algorithm requires no tuning of algorithmic parameters besides the exploration noise. The designer can thus fully focus on cost function design to specify the task. From the viewpoint of robotics, a particular useful property of PI2 is that it can scale to problems of many DOFs, so that RL on real robotic systems becomes feasible. We sketch the PI2 algorithm and its theoretical properties, and how it is applied to gain scheduling. We evaluate our approach by presenting results on two different simulated robotic systems, a 3-DOF Phantom Premium Robot and a 6-DOF Kuka Lightweight Robot. We investigate tasks where the optimal strategy requires both tuning of the impedance of the end-effector, and tuning of a reference trajectory. The results show that we can use path integral based RL not only for planning but also to derive variable gain feedback controllers in realistic scenarios. Thus, the power of variable impedance control is made available to a wide variety of robotic systems and practical applications.

link (url) [BibTex]

Buchli, J., Theodorou, E., Stulp, F., Schaal, S. Variable impedance control - a reinforcement learning approach In Robotics Science and Systems (2010), Zaragoza, Spain, June 27-30, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Inverse dynamics with optimal distribution of ground reaction forces for legged robot

Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), pages: 580-587, Nagoya, Japan, sep 2010 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Contact interaction with the environment is crucial in the design of locomotion controllers for legged robots, to prevent slipping for example. Therefore, it is of great importance to be able to control the effects of the robots movements on the contact reaction forces. In this contribution, we extend a recent inverse dynamics algorithm for floating base robots to optimize the distribution of contact forces while achieving precise trajectory tracking. The resulting controller is algorithmically simple as compared to other approaches. Numerical simulations show that this result significantly increases the range of possible movements of a humanoid robot as compared to the previous inverse dynamics algorithm. We also present a simplification of the result where no inversion of the inertia matrix is needed which is particularly relevant for practical use on a real robot. Such an algorithm becomes interesting for agile locomotion of robots on difficult terrains where the contacts with the environment are critical, such as walking over rough or slippery terrain.

DOI [BibTex]

Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Schaal, S. Inverse dynamics with optimal distribution of ground reaction forces for legged robot In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR), pages: 580-587, Nagoya, Japan, sep 2010 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

2008

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Human movement generation based on convergent flow fields: A computational model and a behavioral experiment

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Advances in Computational Motor Control VII, Symposium at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting, Washington DC, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

2008

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Human movement generation based on convergent flow fields: A computational model and a behavioral experiment In Advances in Computational Motor Control VII, Symposium at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting, Washington DC, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Movement reproduction and obstacle avoidance with dynamic movement primitives and potential fields

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.

In IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2008., 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S. Movement reproduction and obstacle avoidance with dynamic movement primitives and potential fields In IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2008., 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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The dual role of uncertainty in force field learning

Mistry, M., Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Force field experiments have been a successful paradigm for studying the principles of planning, execution, and learning in human arm movements. Subjects have been shown to cope with the disturbances generated by force fields by learning internal models of the underlying dynamics to predict disturbance effects or by increasing arm impedance (via co-contraction) if a predictive approach becomes infeasible. Several studies have addressed the issue uncertainty in force field learning. Scheidt et al. demonstrated that subjects exposed to a viscous force field of fixed structure but varying strength (randomly changing from trial to trial), learn to adapt to the mean disturbance, regardless of the statistical distribution. Takahashi et al. additionally show a decrease in strength of after-effects after learning in the randomly varying environment. Thus they suggest that the nervous system adopts a dual strategy: learning an internal model of the mean of the random environment, while simultaneously increasing arm impedance to minimize the consequence of errors. In this study, we examine what role variance plays in the learning of uncertain force fields. We use a 7 degree-of-freedom exoskeleton robot as a manipulandum (Sarcos Master Arm, Sarcos, Inc.), and apply a 3D viscous force field of fixed structure and strength randomly selected from trial to trial. Additionally, in separate blocks of trials, we alter the variance of the randomly selected strength multiplier (while keeping a constant mean). In each block, after sufficient learning has occurred, we apply catch trials with no force field and measure the strength of after-effects. As expected in higher variance cases, results show increasingly smaller levels of after-effects as the variance is increased, thus implying subjects choose the robust strategy of increasing arm impedance to cope with higher levels of uncertainty. Interestingly, however, subjects show an increase in after-effect strength with a small amount of variance as compared to the deterministic (zero variance) case. This result implies that a small amount of variability aides in internal model formation, presumably a consequence of the additional amount of exploration conducted in the workspace of the task.

[BibTex]

Mistry, M., Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. The dual role of uncertainty in force field learning In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Dynamic movement primitives for movement generation motivated by convergent force fields in frog

Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.

In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S. Dynamic movement primitives for movement generation motivated by convergent force fields in frog In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Behavioral experiments on reinforcement learning in human motor control

Hoffmann, H., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Reinforcement learning (RL) - learning solely based on reward or cost feedback - is widespread in robotics control and has been also suggested as computational model for human motor control. In human motor control, however, hardly any experiment studied reinforcement learning. Here, we study learning based on visual cost feedback in a reaching task and did three experiments: (1) to establish a simple enough experiment for RL, (2) to study spatial localization of RL, and (3) to study the dependence of RL on the cost function. In experiment (1), subjects sit in front of a drawing tablet and look at a screen onto which the drawing pen's position is projected. Beginning from a start point, their task is to move with the pen through a target point presented on screen. Visual feedback about the pen's position is given only before movement onset. At the end of a movement, subjects get visual feedback only about the cost of this trial. We choose as cost the squared distance between target and virtual pen position at the target line. Above a threshold value, the cost was fixed at this value. In the mapping of the pen's position onto the screen, we added a bias (unknown to subject) and Gaussian noise. As result, subjects could learn the bias, and thus, showed reinforcement learning. In experiment (2), we randomly altered the target position between three different locations (three different directions from start point: -45, 0, 45). For each direction, we chose a different bias. As result, subjects learned all three bias values simultaneously. Thus, RL can be spatially localized. In experiment (3), we varied the sensitivity of the cost function by multiplying the squared distance with a constant value C, while keeping the same cut-off threshold. As in experiment (2), we had three target locations. We assigned to each location a different C value (this assignment was randomized between subjects). Since subjects learned the three locations simultaneously, we could directly compare the effect of the different cost functions. As result, we found an optimal C value; if C was too small (insensitive cost), learning was slow; if C was too large (narrow cost valley), the exploration time was longer and learning delayed. Thus, reinforcement learning in human motor control appears to be sen

[BibTex]

Hoffmann, H., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Behavioral experiments on reinforcement learning in human motor control In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Movement generation by learning from demonstration and generalization to new targets

Pastor, P., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

Pastor, P., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Movement generation by learning from demonstration and generalization to new targets In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Combining dynamic movement primitives and potential fields for online obstacle avoidance

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), Cleveland, Ohio, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Combining dynamic movement primitives and potential fields for online obstacle avoidance In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), Cleveland, Ohio, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Computational model for movement learning under uncertain cost

Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Stochastic optimal control is a framework for computing control commands that lead to an optimal behavior under a given cost. Despite the long history of optimal control in engineering, it has been only recently applied to describe human motion. So far, stochastic optimal control has been mainly used in tasks that are already learned, such as reaching to a target. For learning, however, there are only few cases where optimal control has been applied. The main assumptions of stochastic optimal control that restrict its application to tasks after learning are the a priori knowledge of (1) a quadratic cost function (2) a state space model that captures the kinematics and/or dynamics of musculoskeletal system and (3) a measurement equation that models the proprioceptive and/or exteroceptive feedback. Under these assumptions, a sequence of control gains is computed that is optimal with respect to the prespecified cost function. In our work, we relax the assumption of the a priori known cost function and provide a computational framework for modeling tasks that involve learning. Typically, a cost function consists of two parts: one part that models the task constraints, like squared distance to goal at movement endpoint, and one part that integrates over the squared control commands. In learning a task, the first part of this cost function will be adapted. We use an expectation-maximization scheme for learning: the expectation step optimizes the task constraints through gradient descent of a reward function and the maximizing step optimizes the control commands. Our computational model is tested and compared with data given from a behavioral experiment. In this experiment, subjects sit in front of a drawing tablet and look at a screen onto which the drawing-pen's position is projected. Beginning from a start point, their task is to move with the pen through a target point presented on screen. Visual feedback about the pen's position is given only before movement onset. At the end of a movement, subjects get visual feedback only about the cost of this trial. In the mapping of the pen's position onto the screen, we added a bias (unknown to subject) and Gaussian noise. Therefore the cost is a function of this bias. The subjects were asked to reach to the target and minimize this cost over trials. In this behavioral experiment, subjects could learn the bias and thus showed reinforcement learning. With our computational model, we could model the learning process over trials. Particularly, the dependence on parameters of the reward function (Gaussian width) and the modulation of movement variance over time were similar in experiment and model.

[BibTex]

Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Mistry, M., Schaal, S. Computational model for movement learning under uncertain cost In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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A Bayesian approach to empirical local linearizations for robotics

Ting, J., D’Souza, A., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2008), Pasadena, CA, USA, May 19-23, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Local linearizations are ubiquitous in the control of robotic systems. Analytical methods, if available, can be used to obtain the linearization, but in complex robotics systems where the the dynamics and kinematics are often not faithfully obtainable, empirical linearization may be preferable. In this case, it is important to only use data for the local linearization that lies within a ``reasonable'' linear regime of the system, which can be defined from the Hessian at the point of the linearization -- a quantity that is not available without an analytical model. We introduce a Bayesian approach to solve statistically what constitutes a ``reasonable'' local regime. We approach this problem in the context local linear regression. In contrast to previous locally linear methods, we avoid cross-validation or complex statistical hypothesis testing techniques to find the appropriate local regime. Instead, we treat the parameters of the local regime probabilistically and use approximate Bayesian inference for their estimation. This approach results in an analytical set of iterative update equations that are easily implemented on real robotics systems for real-time applications. As in other locally weighted regressions, our algorithm also lends itself to complete nonlinear function approximation for learning empirical internal models. We sketch the derivation of our Bayesian method and provide evaluations on synthetic data and actual robot data where the analytical linearization was known.

link (url) [BibTex]

Ting, J., D’Souza, A., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. A Bayesian approach to empirical local linearizations for robotics In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2008), Pasadena, CA, USA, May 19-23, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Do humans plan continuous trajectories in kinematic coordinates?

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
The planning and execution of human arm movements is still unresolved. An ongoing controversy is whether we plan a movement in kinematic coordinates and convert these coordinates with an inverse internal model into motor commands (like muscle activation) or whether we combine a few muscle synergies or equilibrium points to move a hand, e.g., between two targets. The first hypothesis implies that a planner produces a desired end-effector position for all time points; the second relies on the dynamics of the muscular-skeletal system for a given control command to produce a continuous end-effector trajectory. To distinguish between these two possibilities, we use a visuomotor adaptation experiment. Subjects moved a pen on a graphics tablet and observed the pen's mapped position onto a screen (subjects quickly adapted to this mapping). The task was to move a cursor between two points in a given time window. In the adaptation test, we manipulated the velocity profile of the cursor feedback such that the shape of the trajectories remained unchanged (for straight paths). If humans would use a kinematic plan and map at each time the desired end-effector position onto control commands, subjects should adapt to the above manipulation. In a similar experiment, Wolpert et al (1995) showed adaptation to changes in the curvature of trajectories. This result, however, cannot rule out a shift of an equilibrium point or an additional synergy activation between start and end point of a movement. In our experiment, subjects did two sessions, one control without and one with velocity-profile manipulation. To skew the velocity profile of the cursor trajectory, we added to the current velocity, v, the function 0.8*v*cos(pi + pi*x), where x is the projection of the cursor position onto the start-goal line divided by the distance start to goal (x=0 at the start point). As result, subjects did not adapt to this manipulation: for all subjects, the true hand motion was not significantly modified in a direction consistent with adaptation, despite that the visually presented motion differed significantly from the control motion. One may still argue that this difference in motion was insufficient to be processed visually. Thus, as a control experiment, we replayed control and modified motions to the subjects and asked which of the two motions appeared 'more natural'. Subjects chose the unperturbed motion as more natural significantly better than chance. In summary, for a visuomotor transformation task, the hypothesis of a planned continuous end-effector trajectory predicts adaptation to a modified velocity profile. The current experiment found no adaptation under such transformation.

[BibTex]

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Do humans plan continuous trajectories in kinematic coordinates? In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

2007

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Towards Machine Learning of Motor Skills

Peters, J., Schaal, S., Schölkopf, B.

In Proceedings of Autonome Mobile Systeme (AMS), pages: 138-144, (Editors: K Berns and T Luksch), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Autonomous robots that can adapt to novel situations has been a long standing vision of robotics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive sciences. Early approaches to this goal during the heydays of artificial intelligence research in the late 1980s, however, made it clear that an approach purely based on reasoning or human insights would not be able to model all the perceptuomotor tasks that a robot should fulfill. Instead, new hope was put in the growing wake of machine learning that promised fully adaptive control algorithms which learn both by observation and trial-and-error. However, to date, learning techniques have yet to fulfill this promise as only few methods manage to scale into the high-dimensional domains of manipulator robotics, or even the new upcoming trend of humanoid robotics, and usually scaling was only achieved in precisely pre-structured domains. In this paper, we investigate the ingredients for a general approach to motor skill learning in order to get one step closer towards human-like performance. For doing so, we study two ma jor components for such an approach, i.e., firstly, a theoretically well-founded general approach to representing the required control structures for task representation and execution and, secondly, appropriate learning algorithms which can be applied in this setting.

PDF DOI [BibTex]

2007

Peters, J., Schaal, S., Schölkopf, B. Towards Machine Learning of Motor Skills In Proceedings of Autonome Mobile Systeme (AMS), pages: 138-144, (Editors: K Berns and T Luksch), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Reinforcement Learning for Optimal Control of Arm Movements

Theodorou, E., Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the 37st Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience., Neuroscience, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Every day motor behavior consists of a plethora of challenging motor skills from discrete movements such as reaching and throwing to rhythmic movements such as walking, drumming and running. How this plethora of motor skills can be learned remains an open question. In particular, is there any unifying computa-tional framework that could model the learning process of this variety of motor behaviors and at the same time be biologically plausible? In this work we aim to give an answer to these questions by providing a computational framework that unifies the learning mechanism of both rhythmic and discrete movements under optimization criteria, i.e., in a non-supervised trial-and-error fashion. Our suggested framework is based on Reinforcement Learning, which is mostly considered as too costly to be a plausible mechanism for learning com-plex limb movement. However, recent work on reinforcement learning with pol-icy gradients combined with parameterized movement primitives allows novel and more efficient algorithms. By using the representational power of such mo-tor primitives we show how rhythmic motor behaviors such as walking, squash-ing and drumming as well as discrete behaviors like reaching and grasping can be learned with biologically plausible algorithms. Using extensive simulations and by using different reward functions we provide results that support the hy-pothesis that Reinforcement Learning could be a viable candidate for motor learning of human motor behavior when other learning methods like supervised learning are not feasible.

[BibTex]

Theodorou, E., Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement Learning for Optimal Control of Arm Movements In Abstracts of the 37st Meeting of the Society of Neuroscience., Neuroscience, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Reinforcement learning by reward-weighted regression for operational space control

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 745-750, ICML, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Many robot control problems of practical importance, including operational space control, can be reformulated as immediate reward reinforcement learning problems. However, few of the known optimization or reinforcement learning algorithms can be used in online learning control for robots, as they are either prohibitively slow, do not scale to interesting domains of complex robots, or require trying out policies generated by random search, which are infeasible for a physical system. Using a generalization of the EM-base reinforcement learning framework suggested by Dayan & Hinton, we reduce the problem of learning with immediate rewards to a reward-weighted regression problem with an adaptive, integrated reward transformation for faster convergence. The resulting algorithm is efficient, learns smoothly without dangerous jumps in solution space, and works well in applications of complex high degree-of-freedom robots.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning by reward-weighted regression for operational space control In Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Machine Learning, pages: 745-750, ICML, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Policy gradient methods for machine learning

Peters, J., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 14th INFORMS Conference of the Applied Probability Society, pages: 97-98, Eindhoven, Netherlands, July 9-11, 2007, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present an in-depth survey of policy gradient methods as they are used in the machine learning community for optimizing parameterized, stochastic control policies in Markovian systems with respect to the expected reward. Despite having been developed separately in the reinforcement learning literature, policy gradient methods employ likelihood ratio gradient estimators as also suggested in the stochastic simulation optimization community. It is well-known that this approach to policy gradient estimation traditionally suffers from three drawbacks, i.e., large variance, a strong dependence on baseline functions and a inefficient gradient descent. In this talk, we will present a series of recent results which tackles each of these problems. The variance of the gradient estimation can be reduced significantly through recently introduced techniques such as optimal baselines, compatible function approximations and all-action gradients. However, as even the analytically obtainable policy gradients perform unnaturally slow, it required the step from ÔvanillaÕ policy gradient methods towards natural policy gradients in order to overcome the inefficiency of the gradient descent. This development resulted into the Natural Actor-Critic architecture which can be shown to be very efficient in application to motor primitive learning for robotics.

[BibTex]

Peters, J., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Policy gradient methods for machine learning In Proceedings of the 14th INFORMS Conference of the Applied Probability Society, pages: 97-98, Eindhoven, Netherlands, July 9-11, 2007, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Policy Learning for Motor Skills

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP), pages: 233-242, (Editors: Ishikawa, M. , K. Doya, H. Miyamoto, T. Yamakawa), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Policy learning which allows autonomous robots to adapt to novel situations has been a long standing vision of robotics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive sciences. However, to date, learning techniques have yet to fulfill this promise as only few methods manage to scale into the high-dimensional domains of manipulator robotics, or even the new upcoming trend of humanoid robotics, and usually scaling was only achieved in precisely pre-structured domains. In this paper, we investigate the ingredients for a general approach policy learning with the goal of an application to motor skill refinement in order to get one step closer towards human-like performance. For doing so, we study two major components for such an approach, i.e., firstly, we study policy learning algorithms which can be applied in the general setting of motor skill learning, and, secondly, we study a theoretically well-founded general approach to representing the required control structures for task representation and execution.

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Policy Learning for Motor Skills In Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP), pages: 233-242, (Editors: Ishikawa, M. , K. Doya, H. Miyamoto, T. Yamakawa), 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

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Reinforcement learning for operational space control

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages: 2111-2116, IEEE Computer Society, ICRA, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
While operational space control is of essential importance for robotics and well-understood from an analytical point of view, it can be prohibitively hard to achieve accurate control in face of modeling errors, which are inevitable in complex robots, e.g., humanoid robots. In such cases, learning control methods can offer an interesting alternative to analytical control algorithms. However, the resulting supervised learning problem is ill-defined as it requires to learn an inverse mapping of a usually redundant system, which is well known to suffer from the property of non-convexity of the solution space, i.e., the learning system could generate motor commands that try to steer the robot into physically impossible configurations. The important insight that many operational space control algorithms can be reformulated as optimal control problems, however, allows addressing this inverse learning problem in the framework of reinforcement learning. However, few of the known optimization or reinforcement learning algorithms can be used in online learning control for robots, as they are either prohibitively slow, do not scale to interesting domains of complex robots, or require trying out policies generated by random search, which are infeasible for a physical system. Using a generalization of the EM-based reinforcement learning framework suggested by Dayan & Hinton, we reduce the problem of learning with immediate rewards to a reward-weighted regression problem with an adaptive, integrated reward transformation for faster convergence. The resulting algorithm is efficient, learns smoothly without dangerous jumps in solution space, and works well in applications of complex high degree-of-freedom robots.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning for operational space control In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages: 2111-2116, IEEE Computer Society, ICRA, 2007, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Less Conservative Polytopic LPV Models for Charge Control by Combining Parameter Set Mapping and Set Intersection

Kwiatkowski, A., Trimpe, S., Werner, H.

In Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2007 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]

Kwiatkowski, A., Trimpe, S., Werner, H. Less Conservative Polytopic LPV Models for Charge Control by Combining Parameter Set Mapping and Set Intersection In Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2007 (inproceedings)

DOI [BibTex]