Connectionists: Reinforcement Learning Competition 2013

[Christos Dimitrakakis]

Dear all,

After a four year hiatus, the reinforcement-learning competition is
back. The primary aim of the competition is to test both general and
domain-specific reinforcement learning algorithms, using an unbiased
and transparent methodology. As a side-effect, the competition will
generate a set of benchmarks domains and benchmark results in those
domains, which can then be used as a basis of comparison in future
work.

As in the previous years, the competition will be hosted at

http://www.rl-competition.org/

The format will be remain as is. Agents may compete in one or more of
a set of known domains. This set will include a polyathlon event,
where the agents compete in a sequence of arbitrary environments.

We envisage the actual competition to take place in June 2013.

We invite:

1. Submissions of evaluation domains.
2. Expressions of interest to aid with the organisation.
3. Donation of prizes for the competition.

Domain submissions
------------------

In order to keep the competition fresh, we solicit submission of new
domains. These can be used either as stand-alone domains, or be
incorporated in the polyathlon event.

Everyone is encouraged to submit a short, one-paragraph, domain proposal
by Dec 15, 2012. Complete draft domains may be submitted until January
15th. Accepted proposals will be invited to submit a complete, tested,
domain by Feb 15.

Requirements for domains:

1. All domains must have appropriate rl-glue interfaces so that they can
be used in the competition without modification.
2. All domains must be accompanied by a demo agent.
3. The domain must support parameter randomisation out of the box. We
particularly encourage domains with a lot of potential variability. An
appropriate experiment should be provided demonstrating this.
4. There must be adequate documentation in plain text and/or HTML with
images, such that it can be easily inserted in the competition website.
5. Domains requiring protocol extensions are strongly discouraged.


Organisation
------------

We also encourage anybody who is interested to help with the
organisation to contact us by email as soon as possible. We invite
expressions of interests for help with the following tasks:

1. Website. Setting up and maintaining the competition website.
2. Publicity. Advertising the competition.
3. Funding. To cover prizes and incidental expenses.
4. Domain-specific technical support. Ideally this would be provided by
the contributor of each domain, with the exception of the polyathlon event.

Tentative Schedule
------------------

Dec 15th - Domain proposal submission.
Jan 15th - Draft domains submitted.
Feb 15th - Final domains submitted.
March 15th - Proving phase begins.
May 15th - Testing phase begins.
June 15th - Competition ends

Please submit your domains or express your interest in organisation by
sending an email to christos.dimitrakakis at gmail.com with the subject
"RL Competition 2013"


-- 
Dr. Christos Dimitrakakis
EPFL / LIA / INR 239
http://liawww.epfl.ch/People/dimitrak/
+41 21 69 3669