Contributed Talk 2 - "Multi-Robot Deep Reinforcement Learning via Hierarchically Integrated Models" (Best Paper)

Deep reinforcement learning algorithms require large and diverse datasets in order to learn successful perception-based control policies. However, gathering such datasets with a single robot can be prohibitively expensive. In contrast, collecting data with multiple platforms with possibly different dynamics is a more scalable approach to large-scale data collection. But how can deep reinforcement learning algorithms leverage these dynamically heterogeneous datasets? In this work, we propose a deep reinforcement learning algorithm with hierarchically integrated models (HInt). At training time, HInt learns separate perception and dynamics models, and at test time, HInt integrates the two models in a hierarchical manner and plans actions with the integrated model. This method of planning with hierarchically integrated models allows the algorithm to train on datasets gathered by a variety of different platforms, while respecting the physical capabilities of the deployment robot at test time. Our simulated and real world navigation experiments show that HInt outperforms conventional hierarchical policies and single-source approaches.