FAQ

What does this codebase include?

This codebase implements the BADMM-based guided policy search algorithm, including LQG-based trajectory optimization, fitting local dynamics model using a Gaussian Mixture Model prior, and the cost functions used our work.

For ease of applying the method, we also provide interfaces with three simulation and robotic platforms: Box2D for its ease of access, Mujoco for its more accurate and capable 3D physics simulation, and ROS for interfacing with real-world robots.

What does this codebase not include?

The codebase is a work in progress.

It includes the algorithm detailed in (Levine, Finn et al., 2015) but does not yet include support for images and convolutional networks, which is under development.

It does not include the constrained guided policy search algorithm in (Levine et al., 2015; Levine and Abbeel, 2014). For a discussion on the differences between the BADMM and constrained versions of the algorithm, see (Levine, Finn et al. 2015).

Other extensions on the algorithm, including (Finn et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2016; Fu et al., 2015) are not currently implemented, but the former two extensions are in progress.

Why Caffe?

Caffe provides a straight-forward interface in python that makes it easy to define, train, and deploy simple architectures.

We plan to add support for TensorFlow to enable training more flexible network architectures.

How can I find more details on the algorithms implemented in this codebase?

For the most complete, up-to-date reference, we recommend this paper:

Sergey Levine*, Chelsea Finn*, Trevor Darrell, Pieter Abbeel. End-to-End Training of Deep Visuomotor Policies. 2015. arxiv 1504.00702. [pdf]