Related papers: Constrained Stochastic Optimal Control with a Base…
In this review/tutorial article, we present recent progress on optimal control of partially observed Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs). We first present regularity and continuity conditions for POMDPs and their belief-MDP reductions, where…
We consider the task of evaluating a policy for a Markov decision process (MDP). The standard unbiased technique for evaluating a policy is to deploy the policy and observe its performance. We show that the data collected from deploying a…
Multi-agent planning under stochastic dynamics is usually formalised using decentralized (partially observable) Markov decision processes ( MDPs) and reachability or expected reward specifications. In this paper, we propose a different…
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…
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…
We present new algorithms for computing and approximating bisimulation metrics in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Bisimulation metrics are an elegant formalism that capture behavioral equivalence between states and provide strong…
To overcome the curses of dimensionality and modeling of Dynamic Programming (DP) methods to solve Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems, Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods are adopted in practice. Contrary to traditional RL algorithms…
We provide performance guarantees for a variant of simulation-based policy iteration for controlling Markov decision processes that involves the use of stochastic approximation algorithms along with state-of-the-art techniques that are…
This paper investigates the optimization problem of an infinite stage discrete time Markov decision process (MDP) with a long-run average metric considering both mean and variance of rewards together. Such performance metric is important…
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…
We study the common generalization of Markov decision processes (MDPs) with sets of transition probabilities, known as robust MDPs (RMDPs). A standard goal in RMDPs is to compute a policy that maximizes the expected return under an…
Decentralized partially observable Markov decision processes (Dec-POMDPs) are rich models for cooperative decision-making under uncertainty, but are often intractable to solve optimally (NEXP-complete). The transition and observation…
Energy Markov Decision Processes (EMDPs) are finite-state Markov decision processes where each transition is assigned an integer counter update and a rational payoff. An EMDP configuration is a pair s(n), where s is a control state and n is…
We investigate the problem of synthesizing optimal control policies for Markov decision processes (MDPs) with both qualitative and quantitative objectives. Specifically, our goal is to achieve a given linear temporal logic (LTL) task with…
Optimal decision-making under partial observability requires agents to balance reducing uncertainty (exploration) against pursuing immediate objectives (exploitation). In this paper, we introduce a novel policy optimization framework for…
In this work, we consider a cooperative multi-agent Markov decision process (MDP) involving m agents. At each decision epoch, all the m agents independently select actions in order to maximize a common long-term objective. In the policy…
Sample-based trajectory optimisers are a promising tool for the control of robotics with non-differentiable dynamics and cost functions. Contemporary approaches derive from a restricted subclass of stochastic optimal control where the…
We study a Q learning algorithm for continuous time stochastic control problems. The proposed algorithm uses the sampled state process by discretizing the state and control action spaces under piece-wise constant control processes. We show…
In this paper, we consider the gradual-impulse control problem of continuous-time Markov decision processes, where the system performance is measured by the expectation of the exponential utility of the total cost. We prove, under very…
In many practical applications, decision-making processes must balance the costs of acquiring information with the benefits it provides. Traditional control systems often assume full observability, an unrealistic assumption when…