Book Image

Learn Unity ML-Agents ??? Fundamentals of Unity Machine Learning

Book Image

Learn Unity ML-Agents ??? Fundamentals of Unity Machine Learning

Overview of this book

Unity Machine Learning agents allow researchers and developers to create games and simulations using the Unity Editor, which serves as an environment where intelligent agents can be trained with machine learning methods through a simple-to-use Python API. This book takes you from the basics of Reinforcement and Q Learning to building Deep Recurrent Q-Network agents that cooperate or compete in a multi-agent ecosystem. You will start with the basics of Reinforcement Learning and how to apply it to problems. Then you will learn how to build self-learning advanced neural networks with Python and Keras/TensorFlow. From there you move o n to more advanced training scenarios where you will learn further innovative ways to train your network with A3C, imitation, and curriculum learning models. By the end of the book, you will have learned how to build more complex environments by building a cooperative and competitive multi-agent ecosystem.

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Small book image
Learn Unity ML-Agents ??? Fundamentals of Unity Machine Learning
Jun, 2018 | 204 pages
Small book image
Hands-On Deep Learning for Games
Micheal Lanham
Mar, 2019 | 392 pages
Small book image
Hands-On Reinforcement Learning for Games
Micheal Lanham
Jan, 2020 | 432 pages
Small book image
Learn ARCore - Fundamentals of Google ARCore
Micheal Lanham
Mar, 2018 | 274 pages
Table of Contents (8 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
Introducing Machine Learning and ML-Agents
Introducing Machine Learning and ML-Agents
Machine Learning
ML-Agents
Running a sample
Creating an environment
Academy, Agent, and Brain
Summary
2
The Bandit and Reinforcement Learning
The Bandit and Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement Learning
Contextual bandits and state
Exploration and exploitation
MDP and the Bellman equation
Q-Learning and connected agents
Exercises
Summary
3
Deep Reinforcement Learning with Python
Deep Reinforcement Learning with Python
Installing Python and tools
ML-Agents external brains
Neural network foundations
Deep Q-learning
Proximal policy optimization
Exercises
Summary
4
Going Deeper with Deep Learning
Going Deeper with Deep Learning
Agent training problems
Convolutional neural networks
Experience replay
Partial observability, memory, and recurrent networks
Asynchronous actor – critic training
Exercises
Summary
5
Playing the Game
Playing the Game
Multi-agent environments
Adversarial self-play
Decisions and On-Demand Decision Making
Imitation learning
Curriculum Learning
Exercises
Summary
6
Terrarium Revisited – A Multi-Agent Ecosystem
Terrarium Revisited – A Multi-Agent Ecosystem
What was/is Terrarium?
Building the Agent ecosystem
Basic Terrarium – Plants and Herbivores
Carnivore: the hunter
Next steps
Exercises
Summary
7
Other Books You May Enjoy
Other Books You May Enjoy
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Curriculum Learning

As you get more comfortable building agent, you will start to tackle larger problems, which are so large that it often may be better to break the task down to levels of difficulty, not unlike a game. After the problem is decomposed, it can be tackled with Curriculum Learning. Curriculum Learning is where an agent learns a task in stages or levels that increase in difficulty. It really is not unlike the way we learn a task as humans, for example, walking; we first learn to roll, then crawl, stand, stagger, and then walk. We have intuitively learned how to walk this way, but our agent friends need a bit of help, at least for now.

Let's go back to Unity and look at an example that is mostly configured for Curriculum Learning, it just needs a bit of our help to complete the setup. Follow this exercise to set up a Curriculum Learning scenario:

  1. Open the WallJump...
Previous Section
End of Section 6
Next Section