Related papers: Constrained total undiscounted continuous-time Mar…
In this paper, we consider a discrete-time Markov Decision Process (MDP) on a finite state-action space with a long-run risk-sensitive criterion used as the objective function. We discuss the concept of Blackwell optimality and comment on…
Constrained decision-making is essential for designing safe policies in real-world control systems, yet simulated environments often fail to capture real-world adversities. We consider the problem of learning a policy that will maximize the…
We investigate the problem of optimal control synthesis for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), addressing both qualitative and quantitative objectives. Specifically, we require the system to satisfy a qualitative task specified by a Linear…
This paper studies continuous-time Markov decision processes under the risk-sensitive average cost criterion. The state space is a finite set, the action space is a Borel space, the cost and transition rates are bounded, and the…
In this paper, we study asymptotic properties of problems of control of stochastic discrete time systems (also known as Markov decision processes) with time averaging and time discounting optimality criteria, and we establish that the…
In many practical applications, decision-making processes must balance the costs of acquiring information with the benefits it provides. Traditional control systems often assume full observability, an unrealistic assumption when…
The polling system with switch-over durations is a useful model with several practical applications. It is classified as a Discrete Event Dynamic System (DEDS) for which no one agreed upon modelling approach exists. Furthermore, DEDS are…
Interval Markov Decision Processes (IMDPs) are finite-state uncertain Markov models, where the transition probabilities belong to intervals. Recently, there has been a surge of research on employing IMDPs as abstractions of stochastic…
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…
We consider finite model approximations of discrete-time partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) under the discounted cost criterion. After converting the original partially observed stochastic control problem to a fully…
We present existence and discrete-time approximation results on optimal control policies for continuous-time stochastic control problems under a variety of information structures. These include fully observed models, partially observed…
We study policy optimization problems for deterministic Markov decision processes (MDPs) with metric state and action spaces, which we refer to as Metric Policy Optimization Problems (MPOPs). Our goal is to establish theoretical results on…
The fixed-horizon constrained Markov Decision Process (C-MDP) is a well-known model for planning in stochastic environments under operating constraints. Chance-Constrained MDP (CC-MDP) is a variant that allows bounding the probability of…
We study the policy testing problem in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the fixed-confidence setting under a generative model with static sampling. The goal is to decide whether the value of a given policy exceeds a specified…
The deployment of autonomous systems in safety-critical environments requires control policies that guarantee satisfaction of complex control specifications. These systems are commonly modeled as nonlinear discrete-time stochastic systems.…
This tutorial describes recently developed general optimality conditions for Markov Decision Processes that have significant applications to inventory control. In particular, these conditions imply the validity of optimality equations and…
This paper considers an infinite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) that allows for general non-exponential discount functions, in both discrete and continuous time. Due to the inherent time inconsistency, we look for a randomized…
Planning for distributed agents with partial state information is considered from a decision- theoretic perspective. We describe generalizations of both the MDP and POMDP models that allow for decentralized control. For even a small number…
This paper presents an axiomatic approach to finite Markov decision processes where the discount rate is zero. One of the principal difficulties in the no discounting case is that, even if attention is restricted to stationary policies, a…
This paper studies convergence properties of optimal values and actions for discounted and average-cost Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with weakly continuous transition probabilities and applies these properties to the stochastic…