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Enhanced Penalty-based Bidirectional Reinforcement Learning Algorithms

Machine Learning 2025-04-07 v1

Abstract

This research focuses on enhancing reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms by integrating penalty functions to guide agents in avoiding unwanted actions while optimizing rewards. The goal is to improve the learning process by ensuring that agents learn not only suitable actions but also which actions to avoid. Additionally, we reintroduce a bidirectional learning approach that enables agents to learn from both initial and terminal states, thereby improving speed and robustness in complex environments. Our proposed Penalty-Based Bidirectional methodology is tested against Mani skill benchmark environments, demonstrating an optimality improvement of success rate of approximately 4% compared to existing RL implementations. The findings indicate that this integrated strategy enhances policy learning, adaptability, and overall performance in challenging scenarios

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.03163,
  title  = {Enhanced Penalty-based Bidirectional Reinforcement Learning Algorithms},
  author = {Sai Gana Sandeep Pula and Sathish A. P. Kumar and Sumit Jha and Arvind Ramanathan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.03163},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

16 pages, 13 Figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:46:12.723Z