Reinforcement learning driven behavioral entropy based frontier exploration
C. Li (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
M. Popovic – Mentor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
E. van Kampen – Mentor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
I.I. de Pater – Mentor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
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Abstract
Autonomous robotic exploration must balance fast mapgrowth with robustness under uncertainty. Among frontier-based methods, information-theoretic variants (e.g., Shannon/Rényi) are fast and reliable. This thesis integrates Behavioral Entropy (BE)—which models human-like risk perception—into a planner-in-theloop deep reinforcement learning(DQN) framework that learns the BE risk parameter 𝛼 online.
The policy selects 𝛼 from a discrete action set, uses occlusion-aware visibility to compute BE-based information gain, and delegates motion to a classical A* planner; reward shaping couples coverage/entropy reduction with motion cost. Action-usage analysis reveals an adaptive risk schedule—aggressive early, conservative mid-episode, selectively aggressive late—enabling faster cleanup of residual area. Overall, a reinforcement-learning method with risk-attitude tuning yields a robust, planner-compatible explorer.