YIP: Sensorimotor Representation Learning for Robotic Motion Skills

Abstract

ONR-YIP: Sensorimotor Representation Learning for Robotic Motion Skills ~ Sergey Levine, University of WashingtonTechnical Approach. Some of the most effective algorithms for learning representations come from the field of deep learning. However, extending deep learning to sensorimotor tasks in robotic control has proven to be challenging. Deep learning typically requires large amounts of training data (e.g., 1.3 million images for object recognition). Robotic sensorimotor learning requires data from task-specific robotic interactions, which are expensive and time-consuming, and it is unclear whether the same kinds of hierarchies that have been effective in vision will produce good results for control. The PI proposes to explore these challenges through three research tasks:Task 1: Semisupervised Action-Perception Representations Learning. The PI proposes to investigate semisupervised learning methods that will allow sensorimotor representation learning to incorporate large prior datasets of images or motor commands. While these prior datasets do not by themselves describe the sensorimotor relationship, they can inform the algorithm about the structure of each modality, allowing it to learn substantially more generalizable representations.Task 2: Multi-Robot Learning and Lifelong Learning. The PI also proposes to augment the datasets available for learning sensorimotor representations by simultaneous learning of robotic skills on multiple robots, and combining experience from multiple tasks over a robot~s lifetime.Task 3: Action-Centric Hierarchical Representation Learning. The PI will explore how hierarchicalrepresentation learning algorithms can be designed so as to explicitly couple perception and action, and to learn hierarchies of arbitrary depth, acquiring progressively more abstract concepts.These research questions will be discussed in the context of challenging robotic applications, includingrapid autonomous learning of assembly tasks, handling complex objects such as dishes in a personal robotics application, and obstacle avoidance for autonomous aerial vehicles. Anticipated Outcome. The proposed research will advance the state of the art in robotic learning, enabling autonomous acquisition of sensorimotor skills that generalize more widely due topowerful, generalizable, learned representations.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Aug 12, 2016
Source ID
N000141612420

Entities

People

  • Sergey Levine

Organizations

  • Office of Naval Research
  • United States Navy
  • University of Washington

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Neural Network Machine Learning.
  • Robotics and Automation.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Autonomous Systems
  • AI & ML - Neural Networks
  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - Autonomous System Control