Title: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Robotic Grasping: A Simulated Comparative Evaluation of Off-Policy Methods,
Abstract: In this paper, we explore deep reinforcement learning algorithms for
vision-based robotic grasping. Model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) has
been successfully applied to a range of challenging environments, but the
proliferation of algorithms makes it difficult to discern which particular
approach would be best suited for a rich, diverse task like grasping. To answer
this question, we propose a simulated benchmark for robotic grasping that
emphasizes off-policy learning and generalization to unseen objects. Off-policy
learning enables utilization of grasping data over a wide variety of objects,
and diversity is important to enable the method to generalize to new objects
that were not seen during training. We evaluate the benchmark tasks against a
variety of Q-function estimation methods, a method previously proposed for
robotic grasping with deep neural network models, and a novel approach based on
a combination of Monte Carlo return estimation and an off-policy correction.
Our results indicate that several simple methods provide a surprisingly strong
competitor to popular algorithms such as double Q-learning, and our analysis of
stability sheds light on the relative tradeoffs between the algorithms.