Sequential Recovery Updates for Learned Controllers under Successful-Trajectory Preservation

A competent learned controller already recovers from many disturbances. Improving it means learning a correction, and learning when not to apply it. Freezing a skill's parameters does not settle the second half. In a controller that routes among frozen skills, a new entry rule can redirect the states an old skill succeeded on. We therefore constrain entry instead of parameters. Each update searches for a feedback skill at a measured failure. It fits an entry rule that reads observations and rejects every state on an accumulated successful trajectory. The skill is admitted only if the composed controller reproduces the new recovery on its own and replays every protected trajectory exactly. A finite-trajectory condition states when this preserves the previous controller. One mechanism runs on four streams: two motions on each of two humanoid systems. Two updates per stream add 62 recoveries over 192 withheld perturbations, and lose none of the base controller's successes. We then price that guarantee. Removing the constraint recovers 33 more conditions but stops eight protected ones from completing at all, and excluding only what admission proves necessary recovers none of that cost.

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Publication Details

Journal
arXiv (Cornell University)
Published
2026-11-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2611.02555
Primary Topic
Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
Type
preprint
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preprint

Sequential Recovery Updates for Learned Controllers under Successful-Trajectory Preservation

Zongtan Li, Ye Zhao, Tianming Liu
arXiv (Cornell University)
Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
preprint

Sequential Recovery Updates for Learned Controllers under Successful-Trajectory Preservation

Zongtan Li, Ye Zhao, Tianming Liu
preprint en

Abstract

A competent learned controller already recovers from many disturbances. Improving it means learning a correction, and learning when not to apply it. Freezing a skill's parameters does not settle the second half. In a controller that routes among frozen skills, a new entry rule can redirect the states an old skill succeeded on. We therefore constrain entry instead of parameters. Each update searches for a feedback skill at a measured failure. It fits an entry rule that reads observations and rejects every state on an accumulated successful trajectory. The skill is admitted only if the composed controller reproduces the new recovery on its own and replays every protected trajectory exactly. A finite-trajectory condition states when this preserves the previous controller. One mechanism runs on four streams: two motions on each of two humanoid systems. Two updates per stream add 62 recoveries over 192 withheld perturbations, and lose none of the base controller's successes. We then price that guarantee. Removing the constraint recovers 33 more conditions but stops eight protected ones from completing at all, and excluding only what admission proves necessary recovers none of that cost.

arXiv (Cornell University)
Georgia Institute of Technology (US), University of Georgia (US)
Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
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