Related papers: Symblicit algorithms for optimal strategy synthesi…
Multi-period mean-variance optimization is a long-standing problem, caused by the failure of dynamic programming principle. This paper studies the mean-variance optimization in a setting of finite-horizon discrete-time Markov decision…
We consider the problem of controlling a Markov decision process (MDP) with a large state space, so as to minimize average cost. Since it is intractable to compete with the optimal policy for large scale problems, we pursue the more modest…
We study planning problems where autonomous agents operate inside environments that are subject to uncertainties and not fully observable. Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are a natural formal model to capture such…
We study the problem of synthesizing a controller that maximizes the entropy of a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) subject to a constraint on the expected total reward. Such a controller minimizes the predictability of a…
Strategies for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP) typically require memory. One way to represent this memory is via automata. We present a method to learn an automaton representation of a strategy using a modification of…
We study online learning in episodic constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), where the learner aims at collecting as much reward as possible over the episodes, while satisfying some long-term constraints during the learning process.…
We propose a new framework for formulating optimal transport distances between Markov chains. Previously known formulations studied couplings between the entire joint distribution induced by the chains, and derived solutions via a reduction…
Markov chains are the de facto finite-state model for stochastic dynamical systems, and Markov decision processes (MDPs) extend Markov chains by incorporating non-deterministic behaviors. Given an MDP and rewards on states, a classical…
In cyber-physical systems such as automobiles, measurement data from sensor nodes should be delivered to other consumer nodes such as actuators in a regular fashion. But, in practical systems over unreliable media such as wireless, it is a…
Sample-efficient exploration is crucial not only for discovering rewarding experiences but also for adapting to environment changes in a task-agnostic fashion. A principled treatment of the problem of optimal input synthesis for system…
We revisit the problem of finding optimal strategies for deterministic Markov Decision Processes (DMDPs), and a closely related problem of testing feasibility of systems of $m$ linear inequalities on $n$ real variables with at most two…
Symbolic representations have been used successfully in off-line planning algorithms for Markov decision processes. We show that they can also improve the performance of on-line planners. In addition to reducing computation time, symbolic…
We study computational and statistical aspects of learning Latent Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs). In this model, the learner interacts with an MDP drawn at the beginning of each epoch from an unknown mixture of MDPs. To sidestep known…
In this paper, we provide a compositional approach for constructing finite abstractions (a.k.a. finite Markov decision processes (MDPs)) of interconnected discrete-time stochastic switched systems. The proposed framework is based on a…
In this paper, we consider the finite-state approximation of a discrete-time constrained Markov decision process (MDP) under the discounted and average cost criteria. Using the linear programming formulation of the constrained discounted…
We consider the problem of controlling a fully specified Markov decision process (MDP), also known as the planning problem, when the state space is very large and calculating the optimal policy is intractable. Instead, we pursue the more…
Robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) extend standard Markov decision processes (MDPs) to account for uncertainty in the transition probabilities. RMDPs have an uncertainty set that defines a set of possible transition functions, each of…
The paper deals with finite-state Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights assigned to each state-action pair. New algorithms are presented to classify end components according to their limiting behavior with respect to the…
Large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) require planning algorithms with runtime independent of the number of states of the MDP. We consider the planning problem in MDPs using linear value function approximation with only weak…
Markov decision processes can be viewed as transformers of probability distributions. While this view is useful from a practical standpoint to reason about trajectories of distributions, basic reachability and safety problems are known to…