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Course Schedule​

Lecture slides are posted here and on Piazza. All due dates are at 11:59 PM ET.

DateLectureOptional ReadingsLogisticsTopic Groups
1/15Holiday (MLK Jr. Day)
1/17Lecture 1: Course Introduction: What is Robot Learning? [slides][Building Machines That Learn and Think Like People]🔴 Introduction
1/22Lecture 2: Robot Learning: An Overview [slides][RL Textbook, Ch 1]🔴 Introduction
1/24Lecture 3: ML/DL Refresher Part 1 [slides][DL Textbook, Ch 5-10]HW1 Out🟠 ML/DL Refresher
1/29Lecture 4: ML/DL Refresher Part 2 [slides][DL Textbook, Ch 5-10]🟠 ML/DL Refresher
1/31Lecture 5: MDP Basics and Imitation Learning Part 1 [slides][ICML Tutorial][An Invitation to Imitation]🟣 Imitation Learning
2/05Lecture 6: Imitation Learning Part 2 [slides][DAgger][GAIL][Diffusion Policy][Transporter]🟣 Imitation Learning
2/07Lecture 7: RL Basics: Value/Policy Iteration [slides][RL Textbook, Ch 3-4][Key Concepts in RL][Kinds of RL Algorithms]🟢 Model-Free RL
2/12Lecture 8: Q-Learning and Variants [slides][RL Textbook, Ch 5-7][DQN]HW1 Due; HW2 Out🟢 Model-Free RL
2/14Lecture 9: Policy Gradient Methods [slides][RL Textbook, Ch 13][Intro to Policy Gradient]🟢 Model-Free RL
2/19Lecture 10: Actor-Critic Methods [slides][RL Textbook, Ch 13]🟢 Model-Free RL
2/21Lecture 11: Advanced RL Algorithms [slides][PPO][TRPO][DDPG][SAC]🟢 Model-Free RL
2/26Lecture 12: Model-Based Control Basics [slides][Feedback Systems Textbook]HW2 Due; HW3 Out🔵 Model-Based RL
2/28Lecture 13: Optimal Control and Planning Part 1 [slides][Murray's Notes][iLQR][DDP][SCP]🔵 Model-Based RL
3/04Spring Break
3/06Spring Break
3/11Lecture 14: Optimal Control and Planning Part 2 [slides][PETS][Neural-Control Family][MPPI][PILCO][MBPO]🔵 Model-Based RL
3/13Lecture 15: Deep Model-Based RL [slides][Dreamer][TD-MPC]HW3 Due; HW4 Out🔵 Model-Based RL
3/18Lecture 16: Guest Lecture: Learning Structured World Models From and For Physical Interactions (Yunzhu Li) [slides][RoboCook][DynRes][SparseDyn][DPI-Net]🔵 Model-Based RL
3/20Lecture 17: Guest Lecture: Offline RL (Aviral Kumar) [slides][NeurIPS Tutorial][IQL][Diffuser]⚪ RL from Offline Data
3/25Lecture 18: Inverse RL [slides][Maximum Entropy IRL][LP-IRL]Project Proposal Due⚪ RL from Offline Data
3/27Lecture 19: Bandits and Preference-Based Learning [slides][RL Textbook, Ch 2][Dueling Bandits]🟡 Bandits and Exploration
4/01Lecture 20: Exploration [slides][Curiosity][RND]🟡 Bandits and Exploration
4/03Lecture 21: Robot Simulation and Sim2Real [slides][Domain Randomization][Champion-Level Drone Racing]🟤 Specialized Topics
4/08Lecture 22: Safe RL and Safe Robot Learning [slides][Safe Robot Learning Survey][Data-Driven Safety Filters]HW4 Due🟤 Specialized Topics
4/10Lecture 23: Multi-Task/Adaptive/Transferable Robot Learning [slides][Teacher-Student][RMA][Neural-Fly]🟤 Specialized Topics
4/15Lecture 24: Guest Lecture: Foundation Models in Robotics (Yafei Hu) [slides][Survey][SayCan][CLIPort][RT-1][Code as Policies]🟤 Specialized Topics
4/17Lecture 25: Course Summary [slides]⚫ Project
4/22Lecture 26: Student Project Presentations⚫ Project
4/24Lecture 27: Student Project Presentations⚫ Project
5/03Project Report Due