arXiv Machine Learning By Guopeng Li, Yiyang Duan, Yiru Jiao, Chengcheng Xu

Arrive and Survive: Scaling Safe Goal-Conditioned Policy Learning from One-Bit Failure Signals

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The paper introduces Safe Contrastive Reinforcement Learning (Safe-CRL), a method that corrects bias in contrastive RL caused by failure-terminated Markov decision processes. By applying mass-weighted InfoNCE and a log-survival-mass score, Safe-CRL uses only a one-bit failure signal to improve survival and goal-reaching performance across twelve robot navigation and locomotion tasks. The approach demonstrates complex failure-avoidance behaviors and completes the theoretical foundation of contrastive RL under failure termination.

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