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In the classic Bayesian restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, there are $N$ arms, with rewards on all arms evolving at each time as Markov chains with known parameters. A player seeks to activate $K \geq 1$ arms at each time in order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2010-11-23 Wenhan Dai , Yi Gai , Bhaskar Krishnamachari , Qing Zhao

This paper aims to put forward the concept that learning to take safe actions in unknown environments, even with probability one guarantees, can be achieved without the need for an unbounded number of exploratory trials, provided that one…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-01 Agustin Castellano , Juan Bazerque , Enrique Mallada

Multi-armed bandit (MAB) is a widely adopted framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty. Traditional bandit algorithms rely solely on online data, which tends to be scarce as it must be gathered during the online phase when…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-04-23 Wenlong Ji , Yihan Pan , Ruihao Zhu , Lihua Lei

We study a finite-horizon restless multi-armed bandit problem with multiple actions, dubbed R(MA)^2B. The state of each arm evolves according to a controlled Markov decision process (MDP), and the reward of pulling an arm depends on both…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-25 Guojun Xiong , Jian Li , Rahul Singh

In the classic Bayesian restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, there are $N$ arms, with rewards on all arms evolving at each time as Markov chains with known parameters. A player seeks to activate $K \geq 1$ arms at each time in order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2011-12-25 Wenhan Dai , Yi Gai , Bhaskar Krishnamachari , Qing Zhao

Restless multi-armed bandits (RMABs) are a popular framework for algorithmic decision making in sequential settings with limited resources. RMABs are increasingly being used for sensitive decisions such as in public health, treatment…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-22 Jackson A. Killian , Manish Jain , Yugang Jia , Jonathan Amar , Erich Huang , Milind Tambe

The classic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem tackles the challenge of accruing maximum reward while making decisions under uncertainty. However, in applications, often the goal is to minimize cost subject to a constraint on the minimum…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Ishank Juneja , Carlee Joe-Wong , Osman Yağan

Multi-armed bandits (MAB) model sequential decision making problems, in which a learner sequentially chooses arms with unknown reward distributions in order to maximize its cumulative reward. Most of the prior work on MAB assumes that the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-22 Onur Atan , Cem Tekin , Mihaela van der Schaar

We study the stochastic Budgeted Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem, where a player chooses from $K$ arms with unknown expected rewards and costs. The goal is to maximize the total reward under a budget constraint. A player thus seeks to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-16 Marco Heyden , Vadim Arzamasov , Edouard Fouché , Klemens Böhm

Motivated by distributed selection problems, we formulate a new variant of multi-player multi-armed bandit (MAB) model, which captures stochastic arrival of requests to each arm, as well as the policy of allocating requests to players. The…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-08-21 Hong Xie , Jinyu Mo , Defu Lian , Jie Wang , Enhong Chen

Multi-armed bandit (MAB) problems serve as a fundamental building block for more complex reinforcement learning algorithms. However, evaluating and comparing MAB algorithms remains challenging due to the lack of standardized conditions and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-03 Elise Wolf

In mixed-autonomy traffic networks, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are required to make sequential routing decisions under uncertainty caused by dynamic and heterogeneous interactions with human-driven vehicles (HDVs). Early-stage greedy…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-12 Yu Bai , Yiming Li , Xi Xiong

Multi-player Multi-Armed Bandits (MAB) have been extensively studied in the literature, motivated by applications to Cognitive Radio systems. Driven by such applications as well, we motivate the introduction of several levels of feedback…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-04-30 Lilian Besson , Emilie Kaufmann

The Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem is challenging in non-stationary environments where reward distributions evolve dynamically. We introduce RAVEN-UCB, a novel algorithm that combines theoretical rigor with practical efficiency via…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-04 Junyi Fang , Yuxun Chen , Yuxin Chen , Chen Zhang

This paper explores multi-armed bandit (MAB) strategies in very short horizon scenarios, i.e., when the bandit strategy is only allowed very few interactions with the environment. This is an understudied setting in the MAB literature with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-11 Robert C. Gray , Jichen Zhu , Santiago Ontañón

We study a problem of information gathering in a social network with dynamically available sources and time varying quality of information. We formulate this problem as a restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB). In this problem, information…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-01-22 Varun Mehta , Rahul Meshram , Kesav Kaza , S. N. Merchant

Recent advances in wireless radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting allows sensor nodes to increase their lifespan by remotely charging their batteries. The amount of energy harvested by the nodes varies depending on their ambient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-17 Debamita Ghosh , Arun Verma , Manjesh K. Hanawal

This paper introduces the first asymptotically optimal strategy for a multi armed bandit (MAB) model under side constraints. The side constraints model situations in which bandit activations are limited by the availability of certain…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-10 Apostolos N. Burnetas , Odysseas Kanavetas , Michael N. Katehakis

The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a classical learning task that exemplifies the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. However, standard formulations do not take into account {\em risk}. In online decision making systems, risk is a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-04 Qiuyu Zhu , Vincent Y. F. Tan

In this paper, we consider a new Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem where arms are nodes in an unknown and possibly changing graph, and the agent (i) initiates random walks over the graph by pulling arms, (ii) observes the random walk…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-28 Tianyu Wang , Lin F. Yang , Zizhuo Wang