Related papers: Approximate Modified Policy Iteration
In this paper we provide faster algorithms for approximately solving discounted Markov Decision Processes in multiple parameter regimes. Given a discounted Markov Decision Process (DMDP) with $|S|$ states, $|A|$ actions, discount factor…
Approximate dynamic programming (ADP) has proven itself in a wide range of applications spanning large-scale transportation problems, health care, revenue management, and energy systems. The design of effective ADP algorithms has many…
Instability and slowness are two main problems in deep reinforcement learning. Even if proximal policy optimization (PPO) is the state of the art, it still suffers from these two problems. We introduce an improved algorithm based on…
In this work, we consider policy-based methods for solving the reinforcement learning problem, and establish the sample complexity guarantees. A policy-based algorithm typically consists of an actor and a critic. We consider using various…
We propose a new sample-efficient methodology, called Supervised Policy Update (SPU), for deep reinforcement learning. Starting with data generated by the current policy, SPU formulates and solves a constrained optimization problem in the…
In this paper we develop a Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) control algorithm based on a generalized importance sampling scheme and perform parallel optimization via sampling using a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The proposed…
Function approximation is widely used in reinforcement learning to handle the computational difficulties associated with very large state spaces. However, function approximation introduces errors which may lead to instabilities when using…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are standard models for probabilistic systems with non-deterministic behaviours. Long-run average rewards provide a mathematically elegant formalism for expressing long term performance. Value iteration (VI)…
Approximate message passing (AMP) algorithms are iterative methods for signal recovery in noisy linear systems. In some scenarios, AMP algorithms need to operate within a distributed network. To address this challenge, the distributed…
In this paper, we propose a new policy iteration algorithm to compute the value function and the optimal controls of continuous time stochastic control problems. The algorithm relies on successive approximations using linear-quadratic…
This paper studies a finite-horizon Markov decision problem with information-theoretic constraints, where the goal is to minimize directed information from the controlled source process to the control process, subject to stage-wise cost…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) for constrained MDPs (CMDPs) is an increasingly important problem for various applications. Often, the average criterion is more suitable than the discounted criterion. Yet, RL for average-CMDPs (ACMDPs) remains…
This paper addresses the abstract dynamic programming (DP) in the online scenario, where the abstract DP mapping is time-varying, instead of static. In this case, optimal costs and policies at different time instants are not the same in…
Recent work on approximate linear programming (ALP) techniques for first-order Markov Decision Processes (FOMDPs) represents the value function linearly w.r.t. a set of first-order basis functions and uses linear programming techniques to…
Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) allow to compute reliable solutions for dynamic decision problems whose evolution is modeled by rewards and partially-known transition probabilities. Unfortunately, accounting for uncertainty in the…
Markov Decision Processes (MDP) is an useful framework to cast optimal sequential decision making problems. Given any MDP the aim is to find the optimal action selection mechanism i.e., the optimal policy. Typically, the optimal policy…
Safe Policy Improvement (SPI) aims at provable guarantees that a learned policy is at least approximately as good as a given baseline policy. Building on SPI with Soft Baseline Bootstrapping (Soft-SPIBB) by Nadjahi et al., we identify…
We study the off-policy evaluation (OPE) problem in reinforcement learning with linear function approximation, which aims to estimate the value function of a target policy based on the offline data collected by a behavior policy. We propose…
Sampling-based controllers, such as Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) methods, offer substantial flexibility but often suffer from high variance and low sample efficiency. To address these challenges, we introduce a hybrid…
We propose a Geometry-aware Policy Imitation (GPI) approach that rethinks imitation learning by treating demonstrations as geometric curves rather than collections of state-action samples. From these curves, GPI derives distance fields that…