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Existing work on linear constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) has primarily focused on stochastic settings, where the losses and costs are either fixed or drawn from fixed distributions. However, such formulations are inherently…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Kihyun Yu , Seoungbin Bae , Dabeen Lee

For a Markov decision process with countably infinite states, the optimal value may not be achievable in the set of stationary policies. In this paper, we study the existence conditions of an optimal stationary policy in a countable-state…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-06 Li Xia , Xianping Guo , Xi-Ren Cao

Synthesising verifiably correct controllers for dynamical systems is crucial for safety-critical problems. To achieve this, it is important to account for uncertainty in a robust manner, while at the same time it is often of interest to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-05-16 Luke Rickard , Alessandro Abate , Kostas Margellos

In this paper, we consider a class of stochastic optimal control problems with risk constraints that are expressed as bounded probabilities of failure for particular initial states. We present here a martingale approach that diffuses a risk…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2015-07-09 Vu Anh Huynh , Leonid Kogan , Emilio Frazzoli

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is well understood in the deterministic setting, yet rigorous stability and performance guarantees for stochastic MPC remain limited to the consideration of terminal constraints and penalties. In contrast,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-24 Jonas Schießl , Hannah Selder , Ruchuan Ou , Michael Heinrich Baumann , Timm Faulwasser , Lars Grüne

We consider a constrained Markov Decision Problem (CMDP) where the goal of an agent is to maximize the expected discounted sum of rewards over an infinite horizon while ensuring that the expected discounted sum of costs exceeds a certain…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-01 Washim Uddin Mondal , Vaneet Aggarwal

We develop a model-free approach to optimally control stochastic, Markovian systems subject to a reach-avoid constraint. Specifically, the state trajectory must remain within a safe set while reaching a target set within a finite time…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-30 Tingting Ni , Maryam Kamgarpour

We optimize finite horizon multi-agent reach-avoid Markov decision process (MDP) via \emph{local feedback policies}. The global feedback policy solution yields global optimality but its communication complexity, memory usage and computation…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-10 Adam Casselman , Abraham P. Vinod , Sarah H. Q. Li

Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) formalize sequential decision-making problems whose objective is to minimize a cost function while satisfying constraints on various cost functions. In this paper, we consider the setting of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-09-25 Krishna C. Kalagarla , Rahul Jain , Pierluigi Nuzzo

We study continuous action reinforcement learning problems in which it is crucial that the agent interacts with the environment only through safe policies, i.e.,~policies that do not take the agent to undesirable situations. We formulate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-02-13 Yinlam Chow , Ofir Nachum , Aleksandra Faust , Edgar Duenez-Guzman , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

We address the problem of finding an optimal policy in a Markov decision process under a restricted policy class defined by the convex hull of a set of base policies. This problem is of great interest in applications in which a number of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-02-28 Ershad Banijamali , Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Nikos Vlassis

The standard Markov Decision Process (MDP) formulation hinges on the assumption that an action is executed immediately after it was chosen. However, assuming it is often unrealistic and can lead to catastrophic failures in applications such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-14 Esther Derman , Gal Dalal , Shie Mannor

We study the minimization of a spectral risk measure of the total discounted cost generated by a Markov Decision Process (MDP) over a finite or infinite planning horizon. The MDP is assumed to have Borel state and action spaces and the cost…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-16 Nicole Bäuerle , Alexander Glauner

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…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Alexandros Evangelidis , Gricel Vázquez , Simos Gerasimou

In most common settings of Markov Decision Process (MDP), an agent evaluate a policy based on expectation of (discounted) sum of rewards. However in many applications this criterion might not be suitable from two perspective: first, in risk…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-05-11 Yan Li , Zhaohan Sun

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with an unknown cost function and employ stochastic convex optimization tools to address the problem of imitation learning, which consists of learning a policy from a finite set of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-04 Angeliki Kamoutsi , Goran Banjac , John Lygeros

We consider the problem of designing policies for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with dynamic coherent risk objectives. Synthesizing risk-averse optimal policies for POMDPs requires infinite memory and thus…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-09-30 Mohamadreza Ahmadi , Masahiro Ono , Michel D. Ingham , Richard M. Murray , Aaron D. Ames

Here, we explore the problem of error propagation mitigation in modular digital twins as a sequential decision process. Building on a companion study that used a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to infer latent error regimes from surrogate-physics…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-27 Annice Najafi , Shokoufeh Mirzaei

Trajectory optimization is a fundamental stochastic optimal control problem. This paper deals with a trajectory optimization approach for dynamical systems subject to measurement noise that can be fitted into linear time-varying stochastic…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-08-24 Prakash Mallick , Zhiyong Chen

Reinforcement learning (RL) has exceeded human performance in many synthetic settings such as video games and Go. However, real-world deployment of end-to-end RL models is less common, as RL models can be very sensitive to slight…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-29 Jing Dong , Jingwei Li , Baoxiang Wang , Jingzhao Zhang