LP-ACRL: Scaling Rough Terrain Locomotion with Automatic Curriculum Reinforcement Learning
LP-ACRL: Scaling Rough Terrain Locomotion with Automatic Curriculum Reinforcement Learning
Ziming Li¹, Chenhao Li¹², Marco Hutter¹
¹ Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zurich · ² ETH AI Center, ETH Zurich
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2026
Learning Progress-based Automatic Curriculum Reinforcement Learning (LP-ACRL) is an automatic curriculum reinforcement learning framework for scaling quadruped locomotion to diverse rough terrain. Instead of relying on a manually designed difficulty schedule, it estimates learning progress online and shifts training toward tasks where the policy can still improve. The learned controller transfers to an ANYmal D robot, achieving fast, stable locomotion up to 2.5 m/s linear and 3.0 rad/s angular velocity across stairs, slopes, gravel, and low friction surfaces.
No Prior Knowledge for Manual Curriculum Design