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In order for reinforcement learning techniques to be useful in real-world decision making processes, they must be able to produce robust performance from limited data. Deep policy optimization methods have achieved impressive results on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-22 James Queeney , Ioannis Ch. Paschalidis , Christos G. Cassandras

A decision-maker faces uncertainty governed by a data-generating process (DGP), which is only known to belong to a set of sequences of independent but possibly non-identical distributions. A robust decision maximizes the expected payoff…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-02-12 Xiaoyu Cheng

Multi-task reinforcement learning trains generalist policies that can execute multiple tasks. While recent years have seen significant progress, existing approaches rarely provide formal performance guarantees, which are indispensable when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Yannik Schnitzer , Mathias Jackermeier , Alessandro Abate , David Parker

We consider the problem of reinforcement learning when provided with (1) a baseline control policy and (2) a set of constraints that the learner must satisfy. The baseline policy can arise from demonstration data or a teacher agent and may…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-13 Tsung-Yen Yang , Justinian Rosca , Karthik Narasimhan , Peter J. Ramadge

We propose policy gradient algorithms for robust infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with non-rectangular uncertainty sets, thereby addressing an open challenge in the robust MDP literature. Indeed, uncertainty sets that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-30 Mengmeng Li , Daniel Kuhn , Tobias Sutter

This paper describes a novel approach to planning which takes advantage of decision theory to greatly improve robustness in an uncertain environment. We present an algorithm which computes conditional plans of maximum expected utility. This…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-28 Stephen G. Pimentel , Lawrence M. Brem

In robust optimization, we would like to find a solution that is immunized against all scenarios that are modeled in an uncertainty set. Which scenarios to include in such a set is therefore of central importance for the tractability of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-10-14 Jamie Fairbrother , Marc Goerigk , Mohammad Khosravi

A precondition for the deployment of a Reinforcement Learning agent to a real-world system is to provide guarantees on the learning process. While a learning algorithm will eventually converge to a good policy, there are no guarantees on…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-12-27 Paul Daoudi , Mathias Formoso , Othman Gaizi , Achraf Azize , Evrard Garcelon

Reinforcement learning is a powerful paradigm for learning optimal policies from experimental data. However, to find optimal policies, most reinforcement learning algorithms explore all possible actions, which may be harmful for real-world…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-11-15 Felix Berkenkamp , Matteo Turchetta , Angela P. Schoellig , Andreas Krause

We propose a data-driven method to establish probabilistic performance guarantees for parametric optimization problems solved via iterative algorithms. Our approach addresses two key challenges: providing convergence guarantees to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-31 Jingyi Huang , Paul Goulart , Kostas Margellos

The applicability of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms in real-world domains often requires adherence to safety constraints, a need difficult to address given the asymptotic nature of the classic RL optimization objective. In contrast…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-15 Moritz A. Zanger , Karam Daaboul , J. Marius Zöllner

This paper proposes a general incremental policy iteration adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) algorithm for model-free robust optimal control of unknown nonlinear systems. The approach integrates recursive least squares estimation with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-01 Qingkai Meng , Fenglan Wang , Lin Zhao

This paper studies the robust optimal gain selection problem for financial trading systems, formulated within a \emph{double linear policy} framework, which allocates capital across long and short positions. The key objective is to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-01-20 Chung-Han Hsieh

It is becoming increasingly apparent that probabilistic approaches can overcome conservatism and computational complexity of the classical worst-case deterministic framework and may lead to designs that are actually safer. In this paper we…

Applications · Statistics 2008-11-01 Xinjia Chen , Kemin Zhou , Jorge L. Aravena

Informed and robust decision making in the face of uncertainty is critical for robots that perform physical tasks alongside people. We formulate this as Bayesian Reinforcement Learning over latent Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). While…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-02-11 Gilwoo Lee , Brian Hou , Sanjiban Choudhury , Siddhartha S. Srinivasa

Prediction sets can wrap around any ML model to cover unknown test outcomes with a guaranteed probability. Yet, it remains unclear how to use them optimally for downstream decision-making. Here, we propose a decision-theoretic framework…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-10 Tao Wang , Edgar Dobriban

We consider a robust approach to address uncertainty in model parameters in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), which are widely used to model dynamic optimization in many applications. Most prior works consider the case where the uncertainty…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-02 Vineet Goyal , Julien Grand-Clément

Optimal policies in Markov decision processes (MDPs) are very sensitive to model misspecification. This raises serious concerns about deploying them in high-stake domains. Robust MDPs (RMDP) provide a promising framework to mitigate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-06 Reazul Hasan Russel , Bahram Behzadian , Marek Petrik

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are the defacto frame-work for sequential decision making in the presence ofstochastic uncertainty. A classical optimization criterion forMDPs is to maximize the expected discounted-sum pay-off, which…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-02-28 Tomas Brazdil , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Petr Novotny , Jiri Vahala

We present a data-driven approach for producing policies that are provably robust across unknown stochastic environments. Existing approaches can learn models of a single environment as an interval Markov decision processes (IMDP) and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Yannik Schnitzer , Alessandro Abate , David Parker