Related papers: Rethinking Sim2Real: Lower Fidelity Simulation Lea…

Collecting training data from the physical world is usually time-consuming and even dangerous for fragile robots, and thus, recent advances in robot learning advocate the use of simulators as the training platform. Unfortunately, the…

Safety is a critical component of autonomous systems and remains a challenge for learning-based policies to be utilized in the real world. In particular, policies learned using reinforcement learning often fail to generalize to novel…

Deep reinforcement learning provides a promising approach for vision-based control of real-world robots. However, the generalization of such models depends critically on the quantity and variety of data available for training. This data can…

Deep learning approaches have become the standard solution to many problems in computer vision and robotics, but obtaining sufficient training data in high enough quality is challenging, as human labor is error prone, time consuming, and…

For a robot to learn a good policy, it often requires expensive equipment (such as sophisticated sensors) and a prepared training environment conducive to learning. However, it is seldom possible to perfectly equip robots for economic…

How can we reliably simulate future driving scenarios under a wide range of ego driving behaviors? Recent driving world models, developed exclusively on real-world driving data composed mainly of safe expert trajectories, struggle to follow…

Imitation learning is a popular paradigm to teach robots new tasks, but collecting robot demonstrations through teleoperation or kinesthetic teaching is tedious and time-consuming. In contrast, directly demonstrating a task using our human…

This report presents the debates, posters, and discussions of the Sim2Real workshop held in conjunction with the 2020 edition of the "Robotics: Science and System" conference. Twelve leaders of the field took competing debate positions on…

Current research directions in deep reinforcement learning include bridging the simulation-reality gap, improving sample efficiency of experiences in distributed multi-agent reinforcement learning, together with the development of robust…

Programming robots to perform complex tasks is often difficult and time consuming, requiring expert knowledge and skills in robot software and sometimes hardware. Imitation learning is a method for training robots to perform tasks by…

Traversing through a tilted narrow gap is previously an intractable task for reinforcement learning mainly due to two challenges. First, searching feasible trajectories is not trivial because the goal behind the gap is difficult to reach.…

Learned Neural Network based policies have shown promising results for robot navigation. However, most of these approaches fall short of being used on a real robot due to the extensive simulated training they require. These simulations lack…

Sim2Real domain transfer offers a cost-effective and scalable approach for developing LiDAR-based perception (e.g., object detection, tracking, segmentation) in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). However, perception models trained in…

In robotics, simulation has the potential to reduce design time and costs, and lead to a more robust engineered solution and a safer development process. However, the use of simulators is predicated on the availability of good models. This…

Tensegrity robots, composed of rigid rods and flexible cables, exhibit high strength-to-weight ratios and significant deformations, which enable them to navigate unstructured terrains and survive harsh impacts. They are hard to control,…

In this paper, we deal with the reality gap from a novel perspective, targeting transferring Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) policies learned in simulated environments to the real-world domain for visual control tasks. Instead of adopting…

Recent work has demonstrated the ability of deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms to learn complex robotic behaviours in simulation, including in the domain of multi-fingered manipulation. However, such models can be challenging to…

Simulation-to-real transfer using domain randomization for robot control often relies on low-gear-ratio, backdrivable actuators, but these approaches break down when the sim-to-real gap widens. Inspired by the traditional PID controller, we…

The research field of Embodied AI has witnessed substantial progress in visual navigation and exploration thanks to powerful simulating platforms and the availability of 3D data of indoor and photorealistic environments. These two factors…

Learning robotic control policies in the real world gives rise to challenges in data efficiency, safety, and controlling the initial condition of the system. On the other hand, simulations are a useful alternative as they provide an…