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CyberRunner: Pushing the Boundary of Autonomy
CyberRunner is an AI robot whose task is to learn how to play the popular and widely accessible labyrinth marble game. The labyrinth is a game of physical skill whose goal is to steer a marble from a given start point to the end point. In doing so, the player must prevent the ball from falling into any of the holes that are present on the labyrinth board. The movement of the ball can be indirectly controlled by two knobs which change the orientation of the board. While it is a relatively straightforward game, it requires fine motor skills and spatial reasoning abilities, and, from experience, humans require a great amount of practice to become proficient at the game.
Using recent advances in model-based reinforcement learning techniques, CyberRunner is able to outperform the previously fastest recorded time, achieved by an extremely skilled human player, by over 6%. Moreover, it does so with only 6 hours of practice. We envision expanding the capabilities of CyberRunner through further research. Students will contribute to advancing the field and establishing CyberRunner as a real-world robotic benchmark.
Suitable projects in different areas are available for talented and motivated students. The project topics span model-based control, reinforcement learning, computer vision, and hardware design.