Let's open Framsticks to other types of research 

I'm a kind of new to Framsticks.

But it looks to me that Framsticks can only be used
by researchers interested on Neural Networks,
Genetic Algorithms, etc.

I suggest we open Framsticks to other type of research
(such as Reinforcement Learning) by simply creating an
interface to the "environment part of Framsticks".

This interface would allow a researcher to do the
following:

1) Tell the "environment part of Framsticks" that
we want to create an agent with the following
hardware description.

for instance: "my agent is composed of two
sticks, one rotational join and
one presure detector"

2) Tell the "environment part of Framsticks" that
we want the environment to have the following
characteristics.

for instance: "the environment should be
20X20X20 meters of water"

3) Tell the "environment part of Framsticks" what
what should be the initial position of the agent.

for instance: "initial position of the agent
is (10,10,10)"

4) Ask the "environment part of Framsticks" to tell
us what is the current state of some part of the
simulation.

for instance: "What is the current position of
the agent in the environment?" or
"What is the current reading on
the agent's presure detector?"

5) Ask the "environment part of Framsticks" to tell
one of the actuators of the agent to execute certain
command (which should cause a change on the
state of the environment)

for instance: "tell the rotational join of the agent
to rotate so the two sticks are
25 degrees apart" (this may for
instance move the agent one
meter up)

This simple interface would not only allow other types
of researcher to benefit from Framsticks but it would
also allow researchers to compare their findings in a level
field. For instance, One researcher may be able to state
something like: "A faster swimmer sneak was obtained
by making use of one of the Reinforcement Learning
methods. However, the Genetic Learning achieved
close to this performance using half the number of
training episodes"

Please, let me know what you think

Maciej Komosinski's picture

> I suggest we open Framsticks to other type of research
> (such as Reinforcement Learning) by simply creating an
> interface to the "environment part of Framsticks".
>
> This interface would allow a researcher to do the
> following: (...)
>
> This simple interface would not only allow other types
> of researcher to benefit from Framsticks but it would
> also allow researchers to compare their findings in a level
> field. For instance, One researcher may be able to state
> something like: "A faster swimmer sneak was obtained
> by making use of one of the Reinforcement Learning
> methods. However, the Genetic Learning achieved
> close to this performance using half the number of
> training episodes"

Opening Framsticks is our goal. We will develop a simulator
with a network server, so users will be able to connect to
the server and use it in the way you described (and much more).

This requires some time.

(a JAVA remote client GUI for the simulator is also planned).

Yours,

MacKo

I support your idea, Macko.
As a researcher I will appreciate simplifying.