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Despite the numerous uses of semidefinite programming (SDP) and its universal solvability via interior point methods (IPMs), it is rarely applied to practical large-scale problems. This mainly owes to the computational cost of IPMs that…
We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with parameter uncertainty, under the robust MDP paradigm. Previous studies showed that robust MDPs, based on a minimax approach to handle uncertainty, can be solved using dynamic…
This article introduces an algorithm for implicit High Dimensional Model Representation (HDMR) of the Bellman equation. This approximation technique reduces memory demands of the algorithm considerably. Moreover, we show that HDMR enables…
We develop a method for obtaining safe initial policies for reinforcement learning via approximate dynamic programming (ADP) techniques for uncertain systems evolving with discrete-time dynamics. We employ kernelized Lipschitz estimation…
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 (or minimize…
Memory-Bounded Dynamic Programming (MBDP) has proved extremely effective in solving decentralized POMDPs with large horizons. We generalize the algorithm and improve its scalability by reducing the complexity with respect to the number of…
We study the exploration problem with approximate linear action-value functions in episodic reinforcement learning under the notion of low inherent Bellman error, a condition normally employed to show convergence of approximate value…
Discrete time stochastic optimal control problems and Markov decision processes (MDPs) are fundamental models for sequential decision-making under uncertainty and as such provide the mathematical framework underlying reinforcement learning…
We develop several new algorithms for learning Markov Decision Processes in an infinite-horizon average-reward setting with linear function approximation. Using the optimism principle and assuming that the MDP has a linear structure, we…
We study reinforcement learning with linear function approximation where the transition probability and reward functions are linear with respect to a feature mapping $\boldsymbol{\phi}(s,a)$. Specifically, we consider the episodic…
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…
In the theory of Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs), existence of optimal policies have in general been established via converting the original partially observed stochastic control problem to a fully observed one on the…
In the optimization of dynamic systems, the variables typically have constraints. Such problems can be modeled as a Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP). This paper considers the peak Constrained Markov Decision Process (PCMDP), where…
Constrained partially observable Markov decision processes (CPOMDPs) have been used to model various real-world phenomena. However, they are notoriously difficult to solve to optimality, and there exist only a few approximation methods for…
We present the first finite time global convergence analysis of policy gradient in the context of infinite horizon average reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). Specifically, we focus on ergodic tabular MDPs with finite state and action…
Recent advances in symbolic dynamic programming (SDP) combined with the extended algebraic decision diagram (XADD) data structure have provided exact solutions for mixed discrete and continuous (hybrid) MDPs with piecewise linear dynamics…
We consider policy evaluation in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision problems (MDPs) with infinite spaces. We reformulate this task a compositional stochastic program with a function-valued decision variable that belongs to a…
The objective of this paper is to design an efficient and convergent alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) for finding a solution of medium accuracy to conic programming problems whose constraints consist of linear equalities,…
Semidefinite programming (SDP) is a fundamental convex optimization problem with wide-ranging applications. However, solving large-scale instances remains computationally challenging due to the high cost of solving linear systems and…
We propose a new method for optimistic planning in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes based on the idea of adding regularization to the updates of an otherwise standard approximate value iteration procedure. This…