ExplorationPolicies don't work with stepthrough

[FlyingWorkshop]

I'm trying to sample beliefs using the implemented exploration policies (SoftmaxPolicy and EspGreedyPolicy), but they don't work with stepthrough or the other simulator techniques that I've tried.

Steps to recreate:

using POMDPs
using POMDPModels
using POMDPTools

pomdp = TigerPOMDP()
policy = EpsGreedyPolicy(pomdp, 0.05)
beliefs = [b for b in stepthrough(pomdp, policy, DiscreteUpdater(pomdp), "b", max_steps=20)]

Error:

ERROR: MethodError: no method matching action(::EpsGreedyPolicy{POMDPTools.Policies.var"#20#21"{…}, Random.TaskLocalRNG, TigerPOMDP}, ::DiscreteBelief{TigerPOMDP, Bool})

Closest candidates are:
  action(::Starve, ::Any)
   @ POMDPModels ~/.julia/packages/POMDPModels/eZX2K/src/CryingBabies.jl:65
  action(::FeedWhenCrying, ::Any)
   @ POMDPModels ~/.julia/packages/POMDPModels/eZX2K/src/CryingBabies.jl:85
  action(::AlwaysFeed, ::Any)
   @ POMDPModels ~/.julia/packages/POMDPModels/eZX2K/src/CryingBabies.jl:69
  ...

Stacktrace:
 [1] action_info(p::EpsGreedyPolicy{…}, x::DiscreteBelief{…})
   @ POMDPTools.ModelTools ~/.julia/packages/POMDPTools/7Rekv/src/ModelTools/info.jl:12
 [2] iterate
   @ ~/.julia/packages/POMDPTools/7Rekv/src/Simulators/stepthrough.jl:91 [inlined]
 [3] iterate
   @ ~/.julia/packages/POMDPTools/7Rekv/src/Simulators/stepthrough.jl:85 [inlined]
 [4] iterate
   @ ./generator.jl:44 [inlined]
 [5] grow_to!
   @ ./array.jl:907 [inlined]
 [6] collect(itr::Base.Generator{POMDPTools.Simulators.POMDPSimIterator{…}, typeof(identity)})
   @ Base ./array.jl:831
 [7] top-level scope
   @ REPL[6]:1
Some type information was truncated. Use `show(err)` to see complete types.

[dylan-asmar]

I'm not sure about the history of the ExplorationPolicy abstract type, but it doesn't look like it is constructed to work with built-in simulators like stepthrough.

Most of the simulators call action_info(policy, state) to get the action (note: action_info calls action(policy, state) and returns nothing for the info by default: link).

From the documentation for the ExplorationPolicy type,

Sampling from an exploration policy is done using action(exploration_policy, on_policy, k, state). Where k is used to determine the exploration parameter.

Based on the current documentation, this behavior is expected. However, there is probably a good argument to redefine how we construct the exploration policies to include the on_policy and k as part of the struct. Then we could define action(policy::ExplorationPolicy, state) appropriately based on the above comment.

Since I am not familiar with the background here in the development, I am not confident about any secondary issues as it would be a breaking change since we would be redefining the structs of those policies.

[dylan-asmar]

Also, reference #497

[zsunberg]

Yeah, the exploration policy interface was designed for reinforcement learning solvers where the exploration should be decayed, but it is not really a Policy. I would not object to a re-design of that interface.

If you just want an epsilon greedy policy for a rollout. I'd recommend:

struct MyEpsGreedy{M, P} <: POMDPs.Policy
    pomdp::M
    original_policy::P
    epsilon::Float64
end

function POMDPs.action(p::MyEpsGreedy, s)
    if rand() < p.epsilon
        return rand(actions(p.pomdp))
    else
        return action(p.original_policy, s)
    end
end

policy = MyEpsGreedy(pomdp, original_policy, 0.05)

[dylan-asmar]

Closing. Please continue the discussion at https://github.com/JuliaPOMDP/POMDPs.jl/issues/497.