The Robotics Institute

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute

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Abstract

Imitation learning of sequential, goal-directed behavior by standard supervised techniques is often difficult. We frame learning such behaviors as a maximum margin structured prediction problem over a space of policies. In this approach, we learn mappings from features to cost so an optimal policy in an MDP with these cost mimics the expert's behavior.

Further, we demonstrate a simple, provably efficient approach to structured maximum margin learning, based on the subgradient method, that leverages existing fast algorithms for inference. Although the technique is general, it is particularly relevant in problems where A* and dynamic programming approaches make learning policies tractable in problems beyond the limitations of a QP formulation. We demonstrate our approach applied to route planning for outdoor mobile robots, where the behavior a designer wishes a planner to execute is often clear, while specifying cost functions that engender this behavior is a much more difficult task.

Keywords

Path Planning, Structured Classification, Maximum Margin, Online Learning, Convex Programming

Notes

Associated Center(s) / Consortia: Center for the Foundations of Robotics

Associated Lab(s) / Group(s): Planning and Autonomy Lab

Associated Project(s): Learning Locomotion and PeepPredict

Number of pages: 8

Text Reference

Nathan Ratliff, J. Andrew (Drew) Bagnell, and Martin Zinkevich, "Maximum Margin Planning," International Conference on Machine Learning, July, 2006.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Ratliff_2006_5405,
   author = "Nathan Ratliff and J. Andrew (Drew) Bagnell and Martin Zinkevich",
   title = "Maximum Margin Planning",
   booktitle = "International Conference on Machine Learning",
   month = "July",
   year = "2006",
}

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