Scientific Reports (Apr 2021)

Automated curriculum learning for embodied agents a neuroevolutionary approach

  • Nicola Milano,
  • Stefano Nolfi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88464-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Abstract We demonstrate how the evolutionary training of embodied agents can be extended with a curriculum learning algorithm that automatically selects the environmental conditions in which the evolving agents are evaluated. The environmental conditions are selected to adjust the level of difficulty to the ability level of the current evolving agents, and to challenge the weaknesses of the evolving agents. The method does not require domain knowledge and does not introduce additional hyperparameters. The results collected on two benchmark problems, that require to solve a task in significantly varying environmental conditions, demonstrate that the method proposed outperforms conventional learning methods and generates solutions which are robust to variations and able to cope with different environmental conditions.