kenpeter123/microduck-rl

Microduck RL — 2.0 m/s running push

Fork of pollen-robotics/microduck_rl training Pollin Robotics Microduck (25 cm open-source biped, XL330 servos) to run at a measured mean 2.0 m/s forward speed via PPO (rsl_rl + MuJoCo Warp / BAM).

Honest status (2026-09-12, TRAINING STOPPED)

• Recipe: exact DuckEMW running config, only deviation = speed cap raised to 2.5 (MICRODUCK_RUNNING_SPEED_CAP=2.5, MICRODUCK_RUNNING_TARGET_MAX_SPEED=2.5). No flight reward, no Su-style rewards, no achievement gate — reverted to the proven base.
• Max measured mean forward speed (world-displacement eval): 1.621 m/s @ cmd 2.0 (p10 1.387, p90 1.828, max 1.923, ~2 resets) at checkpoint model_76500.pt (iter 76506). This is the best result of the run.
• Earlier best was 1.651 m/s @ cmd 2.0 (model_58000, cap 2.0). The cap-2.5 run reached 1.621 mean at the final checkpoint; fluctuated 1.52–1.65 across the climb — did not pass 1.7.
• Goal (mean 2.0 @ cmd 2.0) NOT reached. Training halted at user request.

How speed is measured (no lies)

scripts/eval_sprint_speed.py measures true world-frame displacement (root_link_pos_w delta / time) across 64 envs, reporting mean / p10 / p90 / max / resets per command. Reward/curriculum metrics are NEVER reported as speed.

Full honest eval — model_76500.pt

cmd (m/s)	mean	p10	p90	max	resets
0.4	0.078	0.000	0.174	0.377	12
0.8	1.211	0.636	1.565	1.615	15
1.2	1.512	1.187	1.775	1.858	4
1.6	1.575	1.323	1.820	1.899	6
2.0	1.621	1.387	1.828	1.923	2

Run it

export MICRODUCK_RUNNING_SPEED_CAP=2.5
export MICRODUCK_RUNNING_TARGET_MAX_SPEED=2.5
.venv/bin/train Mjlab-Running-Flat-MicroDuck \
  --env.scene.num-envs 4096 --agent.max-iterations 80000

Files

• src/mjlab_microduck/tasks/microduck_running_env_cfg.py — running task cfg + knobs
• src/mjlab_microduck/tasks/mdp.py — rewards + speed curriculum
• scripts/eval_sprint_speed.py — lie-proof world-displacement eval
• checkpoints/model_76500.pt — final checkpoint (best: 1.621 m/s @ cmd 2.0)
• checkpoints/model_59000.pt — earlier cap-2.0 checkpoint (1.65 m/s @ cmd 2.0)