Logo: University of Southern California

Events Calendar


  • PhD Thesis Proposal - Gautam Salhotra

    Thu, Mar 23, 2023 @ 09:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    University Calendar


    Title: Accelerating Robot Reinforcement Learning Using Demonstrations

    Committee: Gaurav Sukhatme (Chair), SK Gupta, Laurent Itti, Stefanos Nikolaidis, Somil Bansal

    Date: Thursday March 23, 9am PST

    Abstract:
    Reinforcement learning is a promising and, recently, popular tool to solve robotic tasks such as object manipulation and locomotion. However, it is also well known for being a very hard problem setting to explore in. In contrast, Learning from demonstrations (LfD) methods train agents to the desired solution using demonstrations from a teacher.
    I will explore the role of LfD methods to guide the exploration of RL methods, with the aim of applying it to regular object manipulation tasks. I will talk about work that uses planners and trajectory optimizers to guide RL, and then discuss the role human experts can play in LfD for RL. Finally, I will talk about proposed projects that can extend the current work to get the benefits of demonstrations while avoiding the downsides of obtaining them.



    Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 406

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Melissa Ochoa

    Add to Google CalendarDownload ICS File for OutlookDownload iCal File

Return to Calendar