Implementing our first RL algorithm
In this section, we will cover the implementation of the Q-learning algorithm to solve the grid world problem. To do this, we use the OpenAI Gym toolkit.
Introducing the OpenAI Gym toolkit
OpenAI Gym is a specialized toolkit for facilitating the development of RL models. OpenAI Gym comes with several predefined environments. Some basic examples are CartPole and MountainCar, where the tasks are to balance a pole and to move a car up a hill, respectively, as the names suggest. There are also many advanced robotics environments for training a robot to fetch, push, and reach for items on a bench or training a robotic hand to orient blocks, balls, or pens. Moreover, OpenAI Gym provides a convenient, unified framework for developing new environments. More information can be found on its official website: https://gym.openai.com/.
To follow the OpenAI Gym code examples in the next sections, you need to install the gym
library, which can be easily...