13 Mar 2025
14:00 Doctoral defense IC3 Auditorium
Topic
DreamerRL: Empowering Representation Learning via Predictive World Models for Robot Manipulation Tasks
Student
Alana de Santana Correia
Advisor / Teacher
Esther Luna Colombini - Co-advisor: Paula Dornhofer Paro Costa
Brief summary
Agents capable of operating and adapting autonomously in environments designed for humans are a long-term goal in artificial intelligence (AI). These environments are highly complex, marked by dynamic changes, intricate interactions, and multiple sensory inputs, challenging traditional learning methods. Despite the advances brought by supervised learning and reinforcement learning, these methods face limitations, such as the dependence on large volumes of labeled data or carefully designed reward functions. In addition, traditionally trained agents tend to develop highly specialized action policies, making it difficult to generalize and adapt to new scenarios. Inspired by theories of human cognition, we propose DreamerRL, a framework based on three pillars: embodiment, neocortical structure, and intrinsic motivation. To implement these concepts, we use the humanoid robot NAO, which incorporates human-like sensors. We adopted curiosity-driven reinforcement learning to promote exploratory behaviors, characteristic of child development, and introduced modular blocks guided by attention mechanisms, inspired by the hierarchical, modular, and sparse organization of the human neocortex. We validated the framework in an object manipulation environment, which requires complex and coordinated movements. Our goal is to demonstrate that DreamerRL enables the construction of flexible and adaptive internal representations, allowing the robot to develop autonomously, without relying on complex reward function designs. In addition, we sought to demonstrate its ability to deal with new situations and tasks without the need for exhaustive training.
Examination Board
Headlines:
| Esther Luna Colombini | IC / UNICAMP |
| Ana Carolina Lorena | ITA |
| Anna Helena Reali Costa | PCS/USP |
| Sandra Eliza Fontes de Avila | IC / UNICAMP |
| Hélio Pedrini | IC / UNICAMP |
Substitutes:
| Anderson de Rezende Rocha | IC / UNICAMP |
| Marcos Ricardo Omena de Albuquerque Maximo | ITA |
| Paulo Roberto Ferreira Júnior | UFPel |