Data Driven Control with Learned Dynamics: Model-Based versus Model-Free Approach

This paper compares two different types of data-driven control methods, representing model-based and model-free approaches. One is a recently proposed method - Deep Koopman Representation for Control (DKRC), which utilizes a deep neural network to map an unknown nonlinear dynamical system to a high-dimensional linear system, which allows for employing state-of-the-art control strategy. The other one is a classic model-free control method based on an actor-critic architecture - Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG), which has been proved to be effective in various dynamical systems. The comparison is carried out in OpenAI Gym, which provides multiple control environments for benchmark purposes. Two examples are provided for comparison, i.e., classic Inverted Pendulum and Lunar Lander Continuous Control. From the results of the experiments, we compare these two methods in terms of control strategies and the effectiveness under various initialization conditions. We also examine the learned dynamic model from DKRC with the analytical model derived from the Euler-Lagrange Linearization method, which demonstrates the accuracy in the learned model for unknown dynamics from a data-driven sample-efficient approach.