Model-based Path Integral Stochastic Control: A Bayesian Nonparametric Approach

Abstract: Over the last few years, sampling-based stochastic optimal control (SOC) frameworks have shown impressive performances in reinforcement learning (RL) with applications in robotics. However, such approaches require a large amount of samples from many interactions with the physical systems. To improve learning efficiency, we present a novel model-based and data-driven SOC framework based on path integral formulation and Gaussian processes (GPs). The proposed approach learns explicit and time-varying optimal controls autonomously from limited sampled data. Based on this framework, we propose an iterative control scheme with improved applicability in higher-dimensional and more complex control tasks. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed framework using two nontrivial examples. Compared to state-of-the-art RL methods, the proposed framework features superior control learning efficiency.