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In this paper, we show the convergence rates of posterior distributions of the model dynamics in a MDP for both episodic and continuous tasks. The theoretical results hold for general state and action space and the parameter space of the…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2019-07-23 Zhen Li , Eric Laber

Autonomous systems often have logical constraints arising, for example, from safety, operational, or regulatory requirements. Such constraints can be expressed using temporal logic specifications. The system state is often partially…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-06-21 Krishna C. Kalagarla , Dhruva Kartik , Dongming Shen , Rahul Jain , Ashutosh Nayyar , Pierluigi Nuzzo

We consider the constrained optimal control problem for the gradual-impulsive CTMDP model with the performance criteria being the expected total undiscounted costs (from the running cost and the cost from each time an impulse being…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-07 Alexey Piunovskiy , Yi Zhang

In this paper, we consider a Markov decision process (MDP) with a Borel state space $\textbf{X}\cup\{\Delta\}$, where $\Delta$ is an absorbing state (cemetery), and a Borel action space $\textbf{A}$. We consider the space of finite…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-07 Alexey Piunovskiy , Yi Zhang

Constrained partially observable Markov decision processes (CPOMDPs) have been used to model various real-world phenomena. However, they are notoriously difficult to solve to optimality, and there exist only a few approximation methods for…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-06-27 Robert K. Helmeczi , Can Kavaklioglu , Mucahit Cevik

We study the online estimation of the optimal policy of a Markov decision process (MDP). We propose a class of Stochastic Primal-Dual (SPD) methods which exploit the inherent minimax duality of Bellman equations. The SPD methods update a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-12-09 Yichen Chen , Mengdi Wang

We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2025-07-25 Shuchi Chawla , Dimitris Christou , Amit Harlev , Ziv Scully

In this paper, we study planning in stochastic systems, modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs), with preferences over temporally extended goals. Prior work on temporal planning with preferences assumes that the user preferences form a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-09 Hazhar Rahmani , Abhishek N. Kulkarni , Jie Fu

This paper investigates infinite-horizon average reward Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) with general parametrization. We propose a Primal-Dual Natural Actor-Critic algorithm that adeptly manages constraints while ensuring a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-11 Yang Xu , Swetha Ganesh , Washim Uddin Mondal , Qinbo Bai , Vaneet Aggarwal

We propose policy gradient algorithms for robust infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with non-rectangular uncertainty sets, thereby addressing an open challenge in the robust MDP literature. Indeed, uncertainty sets that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-30 Mengmeng Li , Daniel Kuhn , Tobias Sutter

In this paper, we show how a simulated Markov decision process (MDP) built by the so-called \emph{baseline} policies, can be used to compute a different policy, namely the \emph{simulated optimal} policy, for which the performance of this…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-10-13 Yinlam Chow , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

This note describes sufficient conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with general state and action spaces, and with weakly continuous transition probabilities, can be reduced to discounted MDPs.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-11-21 Eugene A. Feinberg , Jefferson Huang

Stochastic dominance serves as a general framework for modeling a broad spectrum of decision preferences under uncertainty, with risk aversion as one notable example, as it naturally captures the intrinsic structure of the underlying…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-06 Shicong Cen , Jincheng Mei , Hanjun Dai , Dale Schuurmans , Yuejie Chi , Bo Dai

In many sequential decision-making problems, the goal is to optimize a utility function while satisfying a set of constraints on different utilities. This learning problem is formalized through Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs).…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-05 Yonathan Efroni , Shie Mannor , Matteo Pirotta

We study offline Reinforcement Learning in large infinite-horizon discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) when the reward and transition models are linearly realizable under a known feature map. Starting from the classic linear-program…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-24 Gergely Neu , Nneka Okolo

Sharpe ratio (also known as reward-to-variability ratio) is a widely-used metric in finance, which measures the additional return at the cost of per unit of increased risk (standard deviation of return). However, the optimization of Sharpe…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-09-03 Shuai Ma , Guangwu Liu , Li Xia

We study policy optimization in an infinite horizon, $\gamma$-discounted constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). Our objective is to return a policy that achieves large expected reward with a small constraint violation. We consider the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-12 Arushi Jain , Sharan Vaswani , Reza Babanezhad , Csaba Szepesvari , Doina Precup

This paper addresses the problem of optimal control of robotic sensing systems aimed at autonomous information gathering in scenarios such as environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and surveillance and reconnaissance. The information…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2016-01-28 Mikko Lauri , Nikolay Atanasov , George J. Pappas , Risto Ritala

We study the problem of synthesizing a policy that maximizes the entropy of a Markov decision process (MDP) subject to a temporal logic constraint. Such a policy minimizes the predictability of the paths it generates, or dually, maximizes…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-06-17 Yagiz Savas , Melkior Ornik , Murat Cubuktepe , Mustafa O. Karabag , Ufuk Topcu

This work focuses on off-policy evaluation (OPE) with function approximation in infinite-horizon undiscounted Markov decision processes (MDPs). For MDPs that are ergodic and linear (i.e. where rewards and dynamics are linear in some known…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-24 Nevena Lazic , Dong Yin , Mehrdad Farajtabar , Nir Levine , Dilan Gorur , Chris Harris , Dale Schuurmans