arXiv Machine Learning By Derek You, Zafir Shamsi, Keqin Wang, Christine Allen-Blanchette

Higher-Order Morphology Priors for Quadruped Reinforcement Learning Under Actuator Degradation

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The paper investigates how incorporating higher‑order mechanical structure into reinforcement learning policies can improve quadruped locomotion when actuators degrade. By modeling the Unitree Go1 robot as a cell complex and using Hodge‑based message passing across node‑edge‑face relationships, the authors show that this higher‑order morphology actor outperforms other approaches on unseen actuator degradations, achieving higher returns, better survival, and lower velocity‑tracking error. The study demonstrates that explicitly encoding complex mechanical relationships provides a powerful inductive bias for whole‑body compensation in degraded systems.

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