Quality Diversity (QD) algorithms are a recent family of optimization algorithms that search for a large set of diverse but highperforming solutions. In some specific situations, they can solve multiple tasks at once. For instance, they can find the joint positions required for a robotic arm to reach a set of points, which can also be solved by running a classic optimizer for each target point. However, they cannot solve multiple tasks when the fitness needs to be evaluated independently for each task (e.g., optimizing policies to grasp many different objects). In this paper, we propose an extension of the MAP-Elites algorithm, called Multi-task MAP-Elites, that solves multiple tasks when the fitness function depends on the task. We evaluate it on a simulated parametrized planar arm (10-dimensional search space; 5000 tasks) and on a simulated 6-legged robot with legs of different lengths (36-dimensional search space; 2000 tasks). The results show that in both cases our algorithm outperforms the optimization of each task separately with the CMA-ES algorithm.

Reinforcement learning agents are unable to respond effectively when faced with novel, out-of-distribution events until they have undergone a significant period of additional training. For lifelong learning agents, which cannot be simply taken offline during this period, suboptimal actions may be taken that can result in unacceptable outcomes. This paper presents the Autonomous Emergency Management System (A-EMS) -an online, data-driven, emergency-response method that aims to provide autonomous agents the ability to react to unexpected situations that are very different from those it has been trained or designed to address. The proposed approach devises a customized response to the unforeseen situation sequentially, by selecting actions that minimize the rate of increase of the reconstruction error from a variational autoencoder. This optimization is achieved online in a data-efficient manner (on the order of 30 to 80 data-points) using a modified Bayesian optimization procedure. The potential of A-EMS is demonstrated through emergency situations devised in a simulated 3D car-driving application.