Improving Generalization in Visual Reinforcement Learning via
  Conflict-aware Gradient Agreement Augmentation
Siao Liu Zhaoyu Chen Yang Liu Yuzheng Wang Dingkang Yang Zhile Zhao Ziqing Zhou Xie Yi Wei Li Wenqiang Zhang Zhongxue Gan
Learning a policy with great generalization to unseen environments remains
challenging but critical in visual reinforcement learning. Despite the success
of augmentation combination in the supervised learning generalization, naively
applying it to visual RL algorithms may damage the training efficiency,
suffering from serve performance degradation. In this paper, we first conduct
qualitative analysis and illuminate the main causes: (i) high-variance gradient
magnitudes and (ii) gradient conflicts existed in various augmentation methods.
To alleviate these issues, we propose a general policy gradient optimization
framework, named Conflict-aware Gradient Agreement Augmentation (CG2A), and
better integrate augmentation combination into visual RL algorithms to address
the generalization bias. In particular, CG2A develops a Gradient Agreement
Solver to adaptively balance the varying gradient magnitudes, and introduces a
Soft Gradient Surgery strategy to alleviate the gradient conflicts. Extensive
experiments demonstrate that CG2A significantly improves the generalization
performance and sample efficiency of visual RL algorithms.