Related papers: Linear Programming for Large-Scale Markov Decision…
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…
We consider the linear programming approach for constrained and unconstrained Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the long-run average cost criterion, where the class of MDPs in our study have Borel state spaces and discrete countable…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (minimize…
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…
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…
In many operations management problems, we need to make decisions sequentially to minimize the cost while satisfying certain constraints. One modeling approach to study such problems is constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). When…
We study the problem of learning policy of an infinite-horizon, discounted cost, Markov decision process (MDP) with a large number of states. We compute the actions of a policy that is nearly as good as a policy chosen by a suitable oracle…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are stochastic optimization problems that model situations where a decision maker controls a system based on its state. Partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are generalizations of MDPs where…
We consider a broad class of dynamic programming (DP) problems that involve a partially linear structure and some positivity properties in their system equation and cost function. We address deterministic and stochastic problems, possibly…
This paper proposes a new formulation for the dynamic resource allocation problem, which converts the traditional MDP model with known parameters and no capacity constraints to a new model with uncertain parameters and a resource capacity…
We study a large-scale patrol problem with state-dependent costs and multi-agent coordination.We consider heterogeneous agents, rather general reward functions, and the capabilities of tracking agents' trajectories.Given the complexity and…
One often encounters the curse of dimensionality in the application of dynamic programming to determine optimal policies for controlled Markov chains. In this paper, we provide a method to construct sub-optimal policies along with a bound…
Advances in mobile computing technologies have made it possible to monitor and apply data-driven interventions across complex systems in real time. Markov decision processes (MDPs) are the primary model for sequential decision problems with…
Many applications -- including power systems, robotics, and economics -- involve a dynamical system interacting with a stochastic and hard-to-model environment. We adopt a reinforcement learning approach to control such systems.…
We propose a novel randomized linear programming algorithm for approximating the optimal policy of the discounted Markov decision problem. By leveraging the value-policy duality and binary-tree data structures, the algorithm adaptively…
We consider average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with Borel state spaces, countable, discrete action spaces, and strictly unbounded one-stage costs. For the minimum pair approach, we introduce a new majorization condition on the…
We are interested in risk constraints for infinite horizon discrete time Markov decision processes (MDPs). Starting with average reward MDPs, we show that increasing concave stochastic dominance constraints on the empirical distribution of…
This paper discusses algorithms for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) that have monotone optimal policies. We propose a two-stage alternating convex optimization scheme that can accelerate the search for an optimal policy by…
Planning problems are hard, motion planning, for example, isPSPACE-hard. Such problems are even more difficult in the presence of uncertainty. Although, Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) provide a formal framework for such problems, finding…
We study the synthesis of a policy in a Markov decision process (MDP) following which an agent reaches a target state in the MDP while minimizing its total discounted cost. The problem combines a reachability criterion with a discounted…