Learning passive policies with virtual energy tanks in robotics

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zanella, Riccardo, Palli, Gianluca, Stramigioli, Stefano, Califano, Federico
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Zanella, Riccardo
Palli, Gianluca
Stramigioli, Stefano
Califano, Federico
author_facet Zanella, Riccardo
Palli, Gianluca
Stramigioli, Stefano
Califano, Federico
contents Within a robotic context, we merge the techniques of passivity-based control (PBC) and reinforcement learning (RL) with the goal of eliminating some of their reciprocal weaknesses, as well as inducing novel promising features in the resulting framework. We frame our contribution in a scenario where PBC is implemented by means of virtual energy tanks, a control technique developed to achieve closed-loop passivity for any arbitrary control input. Albeit the latter result is heavily used, we discuss why its practical application at its current stage remains rather limited, which makes contact with the highly debated claim that passivity-based techniques are associated with a loss of performance. The use of RL allows us to learn a control policy that can be passivized using the energy tank architecture, combining the versatility of learning approaches and the system theoretic properties which can be inferred due to the energy tanks. Simulations show the validity of the approach, as well as novel interesting research directions in energy-aware robotics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2301_12759
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning passive policies with virtual energy tanks in robotics
Zanella, Riccardo
Palli, Gianluca
Stramigioli, Stefano
Califano, Federico
Robotics
Systems and Control
Within a robotic context, we merge the techniques of passivity-based control (PBC) and reinforcement learning (RL) with the goal of eliminating some of their reciprocal weaknesses, as well as inducing novel promising features in the resulting framework. We frame our contribution in a scenario where PBC is implemented by means of virtual energy tanks, a control technique developed to achieve closed-loop passivity for any arbitrary control input. Albeit the latter result is heavily used, we discuss why its practical application at its current stage remains rather limited, which makes contact with the highly debated claim that passivity-based techniques are associated with a loss of performance. The use of RL allows us to learn a control policy that can be passivized using the energy tank architecture, combining the versatility of learning approaches and the system theoretic properties which can be inferred due to the energy tanks. Simulations show the validity of the approach, as well as novel interesting research directions in energy-aware robotics.
title Learning passive policies with virtual energy tanks in robotics
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.12759