English
Related papers

Related papers: Value-Directed Sampling Methods for POMDPs

200 papers

We consider off-policy evaluation (OPE) in Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs), where the evaluation policy depends only on observable variables and the behavior policy depends on unobservable latent variables. Existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-17 Chengchun Shi , Masatoshi Uehara , Jiawei Huang , Nan Jiang

Planning robust executions under uncertainty is a fundamental challenge for building autonomous robots. Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) provide a standard framework for modeling uncertainty in many applications. In…

Robotics · Computer Science 2018-05-10 Yue Wang , Swarat Chaudhuri , Lydia E. Kavraki

In this paper we consider infinite horizon discounted dynamic programming problems with finite state and control spaces, and partial state observations. We discuss an algorithm that uses multistep lookahead, truncated rollout with a known…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-02-12 Sushmita Bhattacharya , Sahil Badyal , Thomas Wheeler , Stephanie Gil , Dimitri Bertsekas

Decision-making under uncertainty is a critical aspect of many practical autonomous systems due to incomplete information. Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) offer a mathematically principled framework for formulating…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-28 Moran Barenboim , Vadim Indelman

In Passive POMDPs actions do not affect the world state, but still incur costs. When the agent is bounded by information-processing constraints, it can only keep an approximation of the belief. We present a variational principle for the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-07-03 Roy Fox , Naftali Tishby

Memoryless and finite-memory policies offer a practical alternative for solving partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs), as they operate directly in the output space rather than in the high-dimensional belief space. However,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-15 Roy van Zuijlen , Duarte Antunes

Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are a powerful abstraction for tasks that require decision making under uncertainty, and capture a wide range of real world tasks. Today, effective planning approaches exist that…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-05-24 Sebastian Tschiatschek , Kai Arulkumaran , Jan Stühmer , Katja Hofmann

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a risk measure of variability in cost, under the risk-aware MDPs paradigm. Previous studies showed that risk-aware MDPs, based on a minimax approach to handling risk, can be…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2017-05-17 Pengqian Yu , William B. Haskell , Huan Xu

This paper investigates goal-oriented remote monitoring of an unobservable Markov source using energy-harvesting sensors that communicate with a mobile receiver, such as a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-02-20 Sehani Siriwardana , Jean Michel de Souza Sant'Ana , Richard Demo Souza , Abolfazl Zakeri , Onel Luis Alcaraz López

In active perception tasks, an agent aims to select sensory actions that reduce its uncertainty about one or more hidden variables. While partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide a natural model for such problems,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-09-22 Yash Satsangi , Shimon Whiteson , Frans A. Oliehoek , Matthijs T. J. Spaan

The increasing trend to integrate neural networks and conventional software components in safety-critical settings calls for methodologies for their formal modelling, verification and correct-by-construction policy synthesis. We introduce…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-08-08 Rui Yan , Gabriel Santos , Gethin Norman , David Parker , Marta Kwiatkowska

We study the $(\varepsilon, \delta)$-PAC policy identification problem in finite-horizon episodic Markov Decision Processes. Existing approaches provide finite-time guarantees for approximate settings ($\varepsilon>0$) but suffer from high…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-06 Cyrille Kone , Kevin Jamieson

Dealing with Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes is notably a challenging task. We face an average-reward infinite-horizon POMDP setting with an unknown transition model, where we assume the knowledge of the observation model.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-03 Alessio Russo , Alberto Maria Metelli , Marcello Restelli

Gradient-based approaches to direct policy search in reinforcement learning have received much recent attention as a means to solve problems of partial observability and to avoid some of the problems associated with policy degradation in…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-11-18 Jonathan Baxter , Peter L. Bartlett

We introduce a framework for approximate analysis of Markov decision processes (MDP) with bounded-, unbounded-, and infinite-horizon properties. The main idea is to identify a "core" of an MDP, i.e., a subsystem where we provably remain…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-06-22 Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer

Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) provide an efficient way to model real-world sequential decision making processes. Motivated by the problem of maintenance and inspection of a group of infrastructure components with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-15 Manav Vora , Pranay Thangeda , Michael N. Grussing , Melkior Ornik

The global capacity for mineral processing must expand rapidly to meet the demand for critical minerals, which are essential for building the clean energy technologies necessary to mitigate climate change. However, the efficiency of mineral…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-15 William Xu , Amir Eskanlou , Mansur Arief , David Zhen Yin , Jef K. Caers

Coordination of distributed agents is required for problems arising in many areas, including multi-robot systems, networking and e-commerce. As a formal framework for such problems, we use the decentralized partially observable Markov…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-01-16 Daniel S. Bernstein , Christopher Amato , Eric A. Hansen , Shlomo Zilberstein

Online solvers for partially observable Markov decision processes have been applied to problems with large discrete state spaces, but continuous state, action, and observation spaces remain a challenge. This paper begins by investigating…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-09-07 Zachary Sunberg , Mykel Kochenderfer

In the real world, planning is often challenged by distribution shifts. As such, a model of the environment obtained under one set of conditions may no longer remain valid as the distribution of states or the environment dynamics change,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Matteo Ceriscioli , Karthika Mohan