Ungated phase shaping made standing 42x more expensive than stepping - and the stepping was cooking the hip motors
moving-gate-42x-stand-tax.Gate every phase/clock-driven shaping term on the command that justifies motion, price the cmd=0 case explicitly during design - and when a reward flaw is sim-only, book it with trigger conditions instead of operating immediately on a working lineage.
Symptom
At cmd = 0 the sim policy never stood still - it stepped in place and crept 0.98 m per 20 s; on the real robot the same lineage's stepping made hip_roll motors run 20 degC hotter than every other joint (43-48 degC vs 25-28).
Context
The arithmetic closed it: the three phase-shaping terms (joint_pos_ref 1.6, feet_contact_number 1.2, feet_clearance_swing 1.6) are driven by the gait clock with NO command gating, so standing at cmd=0 forfeits 3.32/step of shaping while honest standing earns only 0.078 of tracking - stepping wins 42x. The heat chain: perpetual stepping = perpetual single support = one hip_roll stalled at ~4.3 N*m (25% of torque limit) carrying the torso's frontal-plane moment - two hip_rolls = 90% of whole-machine steady-state I2R; measured stand-vs-step comparison: total heat -71% when actually standing. The suspended test acquitted the actuator (0.21 rad sag -> 0.0008 rad in air) and mechanics vetoed the easy fix ("降 kp 救不了热" - equilibrium torque equals the external load regardless of kp). The fix (moving_gate: hard-gate the three shaping terms on |cmd| > eps) was designed - then DEFERRED by the user because the real robot at the time stood fine: "真机不表现该问题, 为真机不存在的病改奖励表不划算", with written trigger conditions (C-ladder stand row persistently failing, or real robot starting to step/drift at cmd=0) and the known hazard tag (this is exactly the reward-change class that triggers the B-arm signature). When the real robot later DID step and cook, the booked trigger fired and moving_gate moved from debt to to-do with its benefit re-priced: "停止空烧 hip_roll,稳态发热降 ~71%".
Change
moving_gate designed with the gate_by_cmd convention; deferral, triggers, and expected heat recovery all pre-registered instead of patching the reward for a then-sim-only symptom.
Outcome
The cmd=0 stepping went from mystery to closed arithmetic; the thermal measurement (hip_roll +20 degC) quantitatively confirmed the 90%-of-heat prediction; the reward change waited for real-world justification instead of spending a risky revision early.
Mechanism
Clock-driven shaping terms define a perpetual-motion bounty unless gated by command; the resulting idle gait is not a training bug but the table's optimum. Its cost surfaces on hardware as stall-torque heating set by statics (mass x lateral offset), which no gain change can remove - only removing the motion (gating) or widening the stance can.
Applies when
- the policy steps in place or creeps at zero command
- specific joints run hot in idle behaviors
- deciding when a known reward flaw justifies a risky mid-lineage fix
“塑形合计 −3.32/步 … 净: 站定亏 42 倍 … 两颗 hip_roll 4.29 / 4.09 N·m(各占限扭 25%),占全机稳态 I²R 的 90% … 吊挂实测 hip_roll 跟踪误差 0.21 rad → 0.0008 rad … 降 kp 救不了热 … 真机不表现该问题, 为真机不存在的病改奖励表不划算”