Environments

Overview

We provide Environments that follow the OpenAI gym interface for applications such as reinforcement learning algorithms. Generally speaking, an Environment instantiates Scene, Object and Robot and import them into its Simulator. An Environment also instantiates a list of Sensors (usually as part of the observation space) and a Task, which further includes a list of Reward Functions and Termination Conditions.

Most of the code can be found here: igibson/envs/igibson_env.py.

Sensors

We provide different types of sensors as lightweight wrappers around the renderer. Currently we support RGB, surface normal, segmentation, 3D point cloud, depth map, optical flow, and scene flow, and also 1-beam and 16-beam LiDAR signals. Additionally, we provide a sensor noise model with random dropout (currently only for depth map and 1-beam LiDAR) to simulate real-world sensor noise. The amount of noise can be controlled by depth_noise_rate and scan_noise_rate in the config files. Contribution of more noise models is most welcome.

Most of the code can be found in igibson/sensors.

Tasks

Each Task should implement reset_scene, reset_agent, step and get_task_obs.

  • reset_scene and reset_agent will be called during env.reset and should include task-specific details to reset the scene and the agent, respectively.

  • step will be called during env.step and should include task-specific details of what needs to be done at every timestep.

  • get_task_obs returns task-specific observation (non-sensory observation) as a numpy array. For instance, typical goal-oriented robotics tasks should include goal information and proprioceptive states in get_task_obs. Each Task should also include a list of Reward Functions and Termination Conditions defined below. We provide a few Embodied AI tasks.

  • PointGoalFixedTask

  • PointGoalRandomTask

  • InteractiveNavRandomTask

  • DynamicNavRandomTask

  • ReachingRandomTask

  • RoomRearrangementTask

Most of the code can be found in igibson/tasks.

Reward Functions

At each timestep, env.step will call task.get_reward, which in turn sums up all the reward terms. We provide a few common reward functions for robotics tasks.

  • PointGoalReward

  • ReachingGoalReward

  • PotentialReward

  • CollisionReward

Most of the code can be found in igibson/reward_functions.

Termination Conditions

At each timestep, env.step will call task.get_termination, which in turn checks each of the termination condition to see if the episode is done and/or successful. We provide a few common termination conditions for robotics tasks.

Configs

To instantiate an Environment, we first need to create a YAML config file. It will specify parameters for the Environment (e.g. robot type, action frequency, etc), the Sensors (e.g. sensor types, image resolution, noise rate, etc), the Task (e.g. task type, goal distance range, etc), the Reward Functions (e.g. reward types, reward scale, etc) and the Termination Conditions (e.g. goal convergence threshold, time limit, etc). Exapmles of config files can be found here: examples/configs.

Here is one example: examples/configs/turtlebot_point_nav.yaml

# scene
scene: igibson
scene_id: Rs_int
build_graph: true
load_texture: true
pybullet_load_texture: true
trav_map_type: no_obj
trav_map_resolution: 0.1
trav_map_erosion: 2
should_open_all_doors: true

# domain randomization
texture_randomization_freq: null
object_randomization_freq: null

# robot
robot: Turtlebot
is_discrete: false
velocity: 1.0

# task
task: point_nav_random
target_dist_min: 1.0
target_dist_max: 10.0
goal_format: polar
task_obs_dim: 4

# reward
reward_type: geodesic
success_reward: 10.0
potential_reward_weight: 1.0
collision_reward_weight: -0.1

# discount factor
discount_factor: 0.99

# termination condition
dist_tol: 0.36  # body width
max_step: 500
max_collisions_allowed: 500

# misc config
initial_pos_z_offset: 0.1
collision_ignore_link_a_ids: [1, 2, 3, 4]  # ignore collisions with these robot links

# sensor spec
output: [task_obs, rgb, depth, scan]
# image
# ASUS Xtion PRO LIVE
# https://www.asus.com/us/3D-Sensor/Xtion_PRO_LIVE
fisheye: false
image_width: 160
image_height: 120
vertical_fov: 45
# depth
depth_low: 0.8
depth_high: 3.5
# scan
# Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01
# https://www.hokuyo-aut.jp/search/single.php?serial=166
# n_horizontal_rays is originally 683, sub-sampled 1/3
n_horizontal_rays: 228
n_vertical_beams: 1
laser_linear_range: 5.6
laser_angular_range: 240.0
min_laser_dist: 0.05
laser_link_name: scan_link

# sensor noise
depth_noise_rate: 0.0
scan_noise_rate: 0.0

# visual objects
visual_object_at_initial_target_pos: true
target_visual_object_visible_to_agent: false

Parameters of this config file are explained below:

Attribute Example Value Expalanation
scene igibson which type of scene: [empty, stadium, gibson, igibson]
scene_id Rs_int scene_id for the gibson or igibson scene
build_graph true whether to build traversability graph for the building scene
load_texture true whether to load texture into MeshRenderer. Can be set to false if RGB is not needed
pybullet_load_texture true whether to load texture into PyBullet, for debugging purpose only
trav_map_resolution 0.1 resolution of the traversability map. 0.1 means each pixel represents 0.1 meter
trav_map_erosion 2 number of pixels to erode the traversability map. trav_map_resolution * trav_map_erosion should be almost equal to the radius of the robot base
should_open_all_doors True whether to open all doors in the scene during episode reset (e.g. useful for cross-room navigation tasks)
texture_randomization_freq null whether to perform material/texture randomization (null means no randomization, 10 means randomize every 10 episodes)
object_randomization_freq null whether to perform object randomization (null means no randomization, 10 means randomize every 10 episodes)
robot Turtlebot which type of robot, e.g. Turtlebot, Fetch, Locobot, etc
is_discrete false whether to use discrete action space for the robot
velocity 1.0 maximum normalized joint velocity. 0.5 means maximum robot action will actuate half of maximum joint velocities that are allowed in the robot URDF file
task point_nav_random which type of task, e.g. point_nav_random, room_rearrangement, etc
target_dist_min 1.0 minimum distance (in meters) between the initial and target positions for the navigation task
target_dist_max 10.0 maximum distance (in meters) between the initial and target positions for the navigation task
goal_format polar which format to represent the navigation goals: [polar, cartesian]
task_obs_dim 4 the dimension of task-specific observation returned by task.get_task_obs
reward_type geodesic which type of reward: [geodesic, l2, sparse], or define your own
success_reward 10.0 scaling factor of the success reward
slack_reward -0.01 scaling factor of the slack reward (negative because it should be a penalty)
potential_reward_weight 1.0 scaling factor of the potential reward
collision_reward_weight -0.1 scaling factor of the collision reward (negative because it should be a penalty)
discount_factor 0.99 discount factor for the MDP
dist_tol 0.36 the distance tolerance for converging to the navigation goal. This is usually equal to the diameter of the robot base
max_step 500 maximum number of timesteps allowed in an episode
max_collisions_allowed 500 maximum number of timesteps with robot collision allowed in an episode
initial_pos_z_offset 0.1 z-offset (in meters) when placing the robots and the objects to accommodate uneven floor surface
collision_ignore_link_a_ids [1, 2, 3, 4] collision with these robot links will not result in collision penalty. These usually are links of wheels
output [task_obs, rgb, depth, scan] what observation space is. sensor means task-specific, non-sensory information (e.g. goal info, proprioceptive state), rgb and depth mean RGBD camera sensing, scan means LiDAR sensing
fisheye false whether to use fisheye camera
image_width 640 image width for the camera
image_height 480 image height for the camera
vertical_fov 45 camera vertial field of view (in degrees)
depth_low 0.8 lower bound of the valid range of the depth camera
depth_high 3.5 upper bound of the valid range of the depth camera
n_horizontal_rays 228 number of horizontal rays to simulate for the LiDAR
n_vertical_beams 1 number of vertical beams to simulate for the LiDAR. Currently iGibson only supports n_vertical_beams == 1
laser_linear_range 5.6 upper bound of the valid range of the LiDAR
laser_angular_range 240.0 angular range of the LiDAR (in degrees)
min_laser_dist 0.05 lower bound of the valid range of the LiDAR
laser_link_name scan_link the link name of the LiDAR sensor in the robot URDF file
depth_noise_rate 0.0 noise rate for the depth camera. 0.1 means 10% of the pixels will be corrupted (set to 0.0)
scan_noise_rate 0.0 noise rate for the LiDAR. 0.1 means 10% of the rays will be corrupted (set to laser_linear_range)
visual_object_at_initial_target_pos true whether to show visual markers for the initial and target positions
target_visual_object_visible_to_agent false whether these visual markers are visible to the agents

Examples

Static Environments

In this example, we show how to instantiate iGibsonEnv and how to step through the environment. At the beginning of each episode, we need to call env.reset(). Then we need to call env.step(action) to step through the environment and retrieve (state, reward, done, info).

  • state: a python dictionary of observations, e.g. state['rgb'] will be a H x W x 3 numpy array that represents the current image

  • reward: a scalar that represents the current reward

  • done: a boolean that indicates whether the episode should terminate

  • info: a python dictionary for bookkeeping purpose The code can be found here: igibson/examples/demo/env_example.py.

from igibson.envs.igibson_env import iGibsonEnv
from time import time
import igibson
import os
from igibson.render.profiler import Profiler
import logging


def main():
    config_filename = os.path.join(igibson.example_config_path, 'turtlebot_demo.yaml')
    env = iGibsonEnv(config_file=config_filename, mode='gui')
    for j in range(10):
        env.reset()
        for i in range(100):
            with Profiler('Environment action step'):
                action = env.action_space.sample()
                state, reward, done, info = env.step(action)
                if done:
                    logging.info(
                        "Episode finished after {} timesteps".format(i + 1))
                    break
    env.close()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Interactive Environments

In this example, we show how to instantiate iGibsobEnv with a fully interactive scene Rs_int. In this scene, the robot can interact with all the objects in the scene (chairs, tables, couches, etc). The code can be found here: igibson/examples/demo/env_interactive_example.py.