Ready, Set, Plan! Planning to Goal Sets Using Generalized Bayesian Inference

Jana Pavlasek, Stanley Robert Lewis, Balakumar Sundaralingam, Fabio Ramos, Tucker Hermans

Keywords: Planning as inference, Variational inference, Nonparametric learning

TL;DR: We propose a goal set planner which plans to uncertain goal regions using demonstrations of valid goals.

Abstract: Many robotic tasks can have multiple and diverse solutions and, as such, are naturally expressed as goal sets. Examples include navigating to a room, finding a feasible placement location for an object, or opening a drawer enough to reach inside. Using a goal set as a planning objective requires that a model for the objective be explicitly given by the user. However, some goals are intractable to model, leading to uncertainty over the goal (e.g. stable grasping of an object). In this work, we propose a technique for planning directly to a set of sampled goal configurations. We formulate a planning as inference problem with a novel goal likelihood evaluated against the goal samples. To handle the intractable goal likelihood, we employ Generalized Bayesian Inference to approximate the trajectory distribution. The result is a fully differentiable cost which generalizes across a diverse range of goal set objectives for which samples can be obtained. We show that by considering all goal samples throughout the planning process, our method reliably finds plans on manipulation and navigation problems where heuristic approaches fail.

Student First Author: yes

Instructions: I have read the instructions for authors (https://corl2023.org/instructions-for-authors/)

Video: https://youtu.be/0fYLgBCSw9U

Website: https://janapavlasek.com/projects/goal-sets/