Add Quadruped Environments

[yardenas]

• Run PPO on walk, run task (5 seeds)
• Run SAC on walk, run task (5 seeds)
• Sample initial state based on _find_non_contacting_height
• Add docstrings
• Clean up hydra yaml files (!)
• Clean up train_brax.py

Runs are available @ https://api.wandb.ai/links/yardas/y54nyaed

[ShahhhVihaan]

@yardenas I'm sure you already have a plan for this PR, but if you'd like help with any part of it, even the boring or cleanup tasks, I'd be happy to pitch in. I'm getting out of theory RL and trying to get more hands on experience with practical implementations.

[yardenas]

@ShahhhVihaan sounds good! There's def a lot that can be done. I think that adding the escape or fetch tasks would be a solid contribution that's currently missing. I have a general idea of how to do that so I'm happy to guide you through it.

[ShahhhVihaan]

Great, I'll take a look at both dm_control and its version here. Yeah, how do you want me to implement it?

Also, I can fork your fork and make a new branch from the add-quadruped branch. Does that sound good?

[yardenas]

@ShahhhVihaan, sounds great! How can I connect with you? (email for instance)
It would be easier to coordinate the details

[ShahhhVihaan]

You can reach me at vihaan.shah@uconn.edu

[yardenas]

@ShahhhVihaan, just sent you an email

[yardenas]

@btaba, two questions about the design of the environment:

1. Currently we do not sample the initial position of the quadruped as done in the original implementation as it slows down training (I think ~5 additional minutes). What's your opinion about that? I could try to optimize my implementation of _find_non_contacting_height, but not sure exactly if we can gain a lot.
2. I disabled some contacts of the knees with the ground to speed up performance. What do you think about that?

[yardenas]

@btaba let's make it happen, no?

[btaba]

Hi @yardenas , the PR LGTM. Would it be possible to cleanup the config and training scripts and add just the env? If you have some training curve screenshots and a video, that would be awesome. I'll give it an "Approval" and submit

[yardenas]

@btaba, sounds great, thank you!

I'll get the PR ready for merge ASAP :)

SAC on the Walk & Run tasks

PPO on the Walk & Run tasks

Video

Other metrics can be found here: https://api.wandb.ai/links/yardas/y54nyaed

[yardenas]

In case there's still interest, I removed all the training files, the PR should be ready!