Related papers: Smart Sampling for Lightweight Verification of Mar…

Sampling-based model predictive control (MPC) is effective for nonlinear systems but often produces non-smooth control inputs due to random sampling. To address this issue, we extend the model predictive path integral (MPPI) framework with…

We consider risk-sensitive Markov decision processes (MDPs), where the MDP model is influenced by a parameter which takes values in a compact metric space. We identify sufficient conditions under which small perturbations in the model…

We investigate the problem of best-policy identification in discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) when the learner has access to a generative model. The objective is to devise a learning algorithm returning the best policy as early as…

Standard Markov decision process (MDP) and reinforcement learning algorithms optimize the policy with respect to the expected gain. We propose an algorithm which enables to optimize an alternative objective: the probability that the gain is…

In this paper, we propose a novel class of Piecewise Deterministic Markov Processes (PDMPs) that are designed to sample from probability distributions $\pi$ supported on a convex set $\mathcal{M}$. This class of PDMPs adapts the concept of…

Control applications often feature tasks with similar, but not identical, dynamics. We introduce the Hidden Parameter Markov Decision Process (HiP-MDP), a framework that parametrizes a family of related dynamical systems with a…

There has been substantial interest in developing Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms based on piecewise-deterministic Markov processes. However existing algorithms can only be used if the target distribution of interest is differentiable…

Markov jump processes (MJPs) are continuous-time stochastic processes widely used in a variety of applied disciplines. Inference for MJPs typically proceeds via Markov chain Monte Carlo, the state-of-the-art being a uniformization-based…

We present a new geometric interpretation of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with a natural normalization procedure that allows us to adjust the value function at each state without altering the advantage of any action with respect to any…

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…

In this work, we study the problem of actively classifying the attributes of dynamical systems characterized as a finite set of Markov decision process (MDP) models. We are interested in finding strategies that actively interact with the…

Importance sampling is a Monte Carlo method which designs estimators of expectations under a target distribution using weighted samples from a proposal distribution. When the target distribution is complex, such as multimodal distributions…

Software-intensive systems, such as software product lines and robotics, utilise Markov decision processes (MDPs) to capture uncertainty and analyse sequential decision-making problems. Despite the usefulness of conventional policy…

Recently, global pulsar timing arrays have released results from searching for a nano-Hertz gravitational wave background signal. Although there has not been any definite evidence of the presence of such a signal in residuals of pulsar…

Sampling-based motion planning methods, while effective in high-dimensional spaces, often suffer from inefficiencies due to irregular sampling distributions, leading to suboptimal exploration of the configuration space. In this paper, we…

A novel class of non-reversible Markov chain Monte Carlo schemes relying on continuous-time piecewise-deterministic Markov Processes has recently emerged. In these algorithms, the state of the Markov process evolves according to a…

High-quality random samples of quantum states are needed for a variety of tasks in quantum information and quantum computation. Searching the high-dimensional quantum state space for a global maximum of an objective function with many local…

Novel Monte Carlo methods to generate samples from a target distribution, such as a posterior from a Bayesian analysis, have rapidly expanded in the past decade. Algorithms based on Piecewise Deterministic Markov Processes (PDMPs),…

Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide an elegant mathematical framework for modeling complex decision and planning problems in stochastic domains in which states of the system are observable only indirectly, via a…

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…