Helper for NIPS 2018: AI for Prosthetics

This is a helper package designed to help you start the AI for Prosthetics challenge.

How to Start

The package contains run.py that can train, test or submit any agent in /helper/baselines or /agent directory. For example, to train TensorforcePPOAgent for 1000 steps, run

./run.py TensorforcePPOAgent --train 1000

After you trained the agent sufficiently, test the agent locally.

./run.py TensorforcePPOAgent

You can also test the agent with visualization with the -v/--visualize flag.

./run.py TensorforcePPOAgent -v

If you are satisfied with the result, you can submit the agent to CrowdAI with the -s/--submit flag.

./run.py RandomAgent -s

Note that you need to first add your API token to CONFIG.py to submit any agents. Also note that you can only submit 5 times each 24 hours (Issue #141).

Baseline Agents

Basic Agents

To understand the environment, consider running the most basic agents. There are two non-learning baseline agents: RandomAgent and FixedActionAgent. The RandomAgent chooses a random action at every timestep, and the FixedActionAgent chooses the same action at every timestep. Try running the agent locally to gain some intuition about the environment and the competition.

KerasDDPGAgent

The KerasDDPGAgent uses the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient algorithm by Lillicrap et al. (2015). To use this agent, you need the keras-rl package.

TensorforcePPOAgent

The TensorforcePPOAgent uses the Proximal Policy Optimization algorithm by Schulman et al. (2017). To use this agent, you need the tensorforce package.

Create a Custom Agent

You can add custom agents to the /agent directory. The directory contains DoNothingAgent to serve as an example for custom agents. All agents in the /agents directory is imported in ./run.py, so you can use the same commands as above. If you would like to change the network architecture or hyperparameters of the keras-rl or tensorforce agents, you can also copy the baseline agent class to this directory and modify it.

from helper.templates import Agent


class DoNothingAgent(Agent):
    """
    An agent that chooses NOOP action at every timestep.
    """
    def __init__(self, observation_space, action_space):
        self.action = [0] * action_space.shape[0]

    def act(self, observation):
        return self.action

Where can I find more information?

I am writing a post every week about the competition in my blog.

• Understanding the Challenge
• Understanding the Action Space
• Understanding the Observation Space

Of course, you should always check the official page for updates.

• CrowdAI page
• GitHub repository

If you have any questions about the competition, ask them in Gitter or CrowdAI discussion page!

FAQ

Where can I find my CrowdAI token?

Go to this link with [username] replaced with your actual CrowdAI username:

https://www.crowdai.org/participants/[username]

You should see the text API key: XXXX. That is your token!

I'm getting an 400 Server Error saying that I have no submission slots remaining.

According to Issue #141, you are limited to 5 submissions in a 24-hour window. It seems like the counter is incremented in the beginning when you call client.env_create(), so make sure your code is working before attempting to submit!