Title: Models are dead, long live models! or, The Role of Mathematics and Physics in Controlling Intelligent Machines
Abstract: Mathematical models are indispensable for system design. Until recently, one could argue that this was also true for robot control design. Recent advances in AI are calling this basic assumption into question: Why not learn a control strategy directly on a physical system, without any prior knowledge provided by mathematical models, just like animals – including human beings -- do? Or less ambitiously, only use mathematical models for simulating physical systems, but otherwise do control design directly on a robot, either real or simulated. In this talk, I will present my first-hand experiences in model-based control design, ranging from soccer playing robots to fleets of autonomous mobile robots in warehouses to acrobatic flying robots. I will conclude with a live demonstration of CyberRunner, an opensource machine learning platform developed at ETH based on the popular “Labyrinth” dexterity game in which a ball is guided through a maze while avoiding traps. CyberRunner learns through experience and can beat any human with only 1 hour of training and without any prior knowledge.