We propose to optimize Neural Cellular Automata (NCA) environment generators via QD algorithms. We show that NCA-generated environments maintain consistent, regularized patterns regardless of environment size, significantly enhancing the scalability of multi-robot systems.
With the rapid progress in Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF), researchers have studied how MAPF algorithms can be deployed to coordinate hundreds of robots in large automated warehouses. While most works try to improve the throughput of such warehouses …
Recent years have seen a rise in the popularity of quality diversity (QD) optimization, a branch of optimization that seeks to find a collection of diverse, high-performing solutions to a given problem. To grow further, we believe the QD community …
In order to be effective general purpose machines in real world environments, robots not only will need to adapt their existing manipulation skills to new circumstances, they will need to acquire entirely new skills on-the-fly. One approach to …
We study the problem of efficiently generating high-quality and diverse content in games. Previous work on automated deckbuilding in Hearthstone shows that the quality diversity algorithm MAP-Elites can generate a collection of high-performing decks …
Telepresence robots offer presence, embodiment, and mobility to remote users, making them promising options for homebound K-12 students. It is difficult, however, for robot operators to know how well they are being heard in remote and noisy classroom …
When studying robots collaborating with humans, much of the focus has been on robot policies that coordinate fluently with human teammates in collaborative tasks. However, less emphasis has been placed on the effect of the environment on coordination …
We explore possible methods for multi-task transfer learning which seek to exploit the shared physical structure of robotics tasks. Specifically, we train policies for a base set of pre-training tasks, then experiment with adapting to new …
Telepresence robots could help homebound students to be physically embodied and socially connected in the classroom. However, most telepresence robots do not provide their operators with information about whether their speaking volume is appropriate …