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Achieving Stable Training of Reinforcement Learning Agents in Bimodal Environments through Batch Learning

Machine Learning 2023-07-04 v1 Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Bimodal, stochastic environments present a challenge to typical Reinforcement Learning problems. This problem is one that is surprisingly common in real world applications, being particularly applicable to pricing problems. In this paper we present a novel learning approach to the tabular Q-learning algorithm, tailored to tackling these specific challenges by using batch updates. A simulation of pricing problem is used as a testbed to compare a typically updated agent with a batch learning agent. The batch learning agents are shown to be both more effective than the typically-trained agents, and to be more resilient to the fluctuations in a large stochastic environment. This work has a significant potential to enable practical, industrial deployment of Reinforcement Learning in the context of pricing and others.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.00923,
  title  = {Achieving Stable Training of Reinforcement Learning Agents in Bimodal Environments through Batch Learning},
  author = {E. Hurwitz and N. Peace and G. Cevora},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.00923},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:20:37.879Z