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arXiv · 2606.02636

Too Much of a Good Thing: When sim2real Efforts Impede Policy Learning (And What to Do About It)

Kyle Morgenstein·Bharath Masetty·Stephen Welch·Luis Sentis
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Abstract

While sim2real efforts are necessary for effective policy transfer to hardware, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. We argue that sim2real efforts have led to misaligned incentives with policy learning, resulting in simulator lock in and poor policy exploration due to the unreasonable constraints imposed by the real world. We offer a diagnosis and explanation of the current status of the problem, and propose a potential solution via a sim2sim2real paradigm that leverages the robot's kinematics as the sole design constraint.

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Kyle Morgenstein, Bharath Masetty, Stephen Welch, Luis Sentis. 2026-05-30. Too Much of a Good Thing: When sim2real Efforts Impede Policy Learning (And What to Do About It). https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.02636

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