# APPLR: Adaptive Planner Parameter Learning from Reinforcement

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.00397 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00397/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 1 Nov 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Learning Model Predictive Controllers with Real-Time Attention for Real-World Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10780/) (2022)
- [Benchmarking Reinforcement Learning Techniques for Autonomous Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.04839/) (2022)
- [Learning Speed Adaptation for Flight in Clutter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04586/) (2024)
- [DTG : Diffusion-based Trajectory Generation for Mapless Global Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09900/) (2024)
- [High-Speed Accurate Robot Control using Learned Forward Kinodynamics and Non-linear Least Squares Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08487/) (2022)
- [Reinforcement Learning for Wheeled Mobility on Vertically Challenging Terrain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02383/) (2024)
- [Grounded Curriculum Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19816/) (2024)
- [PIC4rl-gym: a ROS2 modular framework for Robots Autonomous Navigation with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10714/) (2022)
- [A Study on Learning Social Robot Navigation with Multimodal Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.12568/) (2023)
- [VertiSelector: Automatic Curriculum Learning for Wheeled Mobility on Vertically Challenging Terrain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17469/) (2024)
- [GACL: Grounded Adaptive Curriculum Learning with Active Task and Performance Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02988/) (2025)
- [Dyna-LfLH: Learning Agile Navigation in Dynamic Environments from Learned Hallucination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17231/) (2024)
- [Adaptive Social Force Window Planner with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13678/) (2024)
- [Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Planner Parameter Tuning: A Perspective on Hierarchical Architecture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18366/) (2025)
- [APPLV: Adaptive Planner Parameter Learning from Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.08862/) (2026)
- [KinematicRL: A Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learning Framework For Social Navigation With Kinodynamic Feasibility](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.12042/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Classical navigation systems typically operate using a fixed set of hand-picked parameters (e.g. maximum speed, sampling rate, inflation radius, etc.) and require heavy expert re-tuning in order to work in new environments. To mitigate this requirement, it has been proposed to learn parameters for different contexts in a new environment using human demonstrations collected via teleoperation. However, learning from human demonstration limits deployment to the training environment, and limits overall performance to that of a potentially-suboptimal demonstrator. In this paper, we introduce APPLR, Adaptive Planner Parameter Learning from Reinforcement, which allows existing navigation systems to adapt to new scenarios by using a parameter selection scheme discovered via reinforcement learning (RL) in a wide variety of simulation environments. We evaluate APPLR on a robot in both simulated and physical experiments, and show that it can outperform both a fixed set of hand-tuned parameters and also a dynamic parameter tuning scheme learned from human demonstration.