What does reality gap mean?
The difference between the world a controller or policy was tuned in, such as a simulator or one robot on one mat, and the world it is run in. Performance measured on one side of the gap can fall sharply on the other.
In a lesson
A policy is only ever tuned in one world: a simulator, a quiet afternoon in the lab, one mat, one battery, one robot. It gets run in another. The distance between the two is the reality gap, and it is where most learned robot behaviour dies.
Learn it
- Taught in U12.6 The reality gap, and honest evaluation Learning, and the capstone, University