UNH Ocean Seminar

Understanding GPU Architecture Influences on Low-Precision Deep Reinforcement Learning

Chris Hixenbaugh

Unmanned Undersea Systems Division at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport

Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, 3:10pm
Chase 105
Abstract

The computational resources required for deep reinforcement learning  (RL) model training are challenging for many applications with computational resource constraints. Low-precision methods are a promising avenue to alleviate computational bottlenecks and reduce the time, memory, and power required for model training. A notional drawback to low-precision training methods is that the benefits depend on model complexity and Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) hardware capabilities. In this work, we will address this notion and gap in the literature and investigate how the benefits of low-precision training methods scale with GPU capabilities and model complexity by benchmarking GPU resource usage using state-of-the-art system profiling methods for Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) deep RL agents trained on control environments for a range of model configurations and NVidia GPUs spanning from edge devices to data science grade desktop cards. 

Bio

Chris Hixenbaugh is an Engineer in the Unmanned Undersea Systems Division at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport, where he is the PI or co-PI on multiple projects sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. Since joining the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in 2019, his research has focused on data-driven control using deep reinforcement learning, computationally efficient artificial intelligence, and physics-informed machine learning methods. Chris earned his Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science with a focus in Computer Science from UMass Dartmouth, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, and his B.S. in Physics from Westminster College (PA).