English
Related papers

Related papers: Safety-Constrained Reinforcement Learning for MDPs

200 papers

Safe reinforcement learning has been a promising approach for optimizing the policy of an agent that operates in safety-critical applications. In this paper, we propose an algorithm, SNO-MDP, that explores and optimizes Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-18 Akifumi Wachi , Yanan Sui

It is quite challenging to ensure the safety of reinforcement learning (RL) agents in an unknown and stochastic environment under hard constraints that require the system state not to reach certain specified unsafe regions. Many popular…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-06-14 Yixuan Wang , Simon Sinong Zhan , Ruochen Jiao , Zhilu Wang , Wanxin Jin , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang , Chao Huang , Qi Zhu

Many physical systems have underlying safety considerations that require that the policy employed ensures the satisfaction of a set of constraints. The analytical formulation usually takes the form of a Constrained Markov Decision Process…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-03 Aria HasanzadeZonuzy , Archana Bura , Dileep Kalathil , Srinivas Shakkottai

In this paper, we consider Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with error states. Error states are those states entering which is undesirable or dangerous. We define the risk with respect to a policy as the probability of entering such a state…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-09-13 P. Geibel , F. Wysotzki

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

In order to satisfy safety conditions, an agent may be constrained from acting freely. A safe controller can be designed a priori if an environment is well understood, but not when learning is employed. In particular, reinforcement learned…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-15 Eleanor Quint , Dong Xu , Samuel Flint , Stephen Scott , Matthew Dwyer

In this paper, we present an online reinforcement learning algorithm for constrained Markov decision processes with a safety constraint. Despite the necessary attention of the scientific community, considering stochastic stopping time, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-26 Abhijit Mazumdar , Rafal Wisniewski , Manuela L. Bujorianu

In this paper, we use concepts from supervisory control theory of discrete event systems to propose a method to learn optimal control policies for a finite-state Markov Decision Process (MDP) in which (only) certain sequences of actions are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-04 Arun Raman , Keerthan Shagrithaya , Shalabh Bhatnagar

A central task in control theory, artificial intelligence, and formal methods is to synthesize reward-maximizing strategies for agents that operate in partially unknown environments. In environments modeled by gray-box Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-25 Christel Baier , Clemens Dubslaff , Patrick Wienhöft , Stefan J. Kiebel

This paper targets the efficient construction of a safety shield for decision making in scenarios that incorporate uncertainty. Markov decision processes (MDPs) are prominent models to capture such planning problems. Reinforcement learning…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-11-26 Nils Jansen , Bettina Könighofer , Sebastian Junges , Alexandru C. Serban , Roderick Bloem

Safety in stochastic control systems, which are subject to random noise with a known probability distribution, aims to compute policies that satisfy predefined operational constraints with high confidence throughout the uncertain evolution…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-12 Saber Omidi , Marek Petrik , Se Young Yoon , Momotaz Begum

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

Despite the tremendous success of Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms in simulation environments, applying RL to real-world applications still faces many challenges. A major concern is safety, in another word, constraint satisfaction.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-04 Weiye Zhao , Tairan He , Rui Chen , Tianhao Wei , Changliu Liu

This paper studies constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with constraints against stochastic thresholds, aiming at safety of reinforcement learning in unknown and uncertain environments. We leverage a Growing-Window estimator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-25 Qian Zuo , Fengxiang He

Practical reinforcement learning problems are often formulated as constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problems, in which the agent has to maximize the expected return while satisfying a set of prescribed safety constraints. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-23 Shin-ichi Maeda , Hayato Watahiki , Shintarou Okada , Masanori Koyama

Recent advances in reinforcement learning (RL) enable its use on increasingly complex tasks, but the lack of formal safety guarantees still limits its application in safety-critical settings. A common practical approach is to augment the RL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Donggeon David Oh , Duy P. Nguyen , Haimin Hu , Jaime F. Fisac

In classical reinforcement learning, when exploring an environment, agents accept arbitrary short term loss for long term gain. This is infeasible for safety critical applications, such as robotics, where even a single unsafe action may…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-01-30 Matteo Turchetta , Felix Berkenkamp , Andreas Krause

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

This paper proposes a reinforcement learning method for controller synthesis of autonomous systems in unknown and partially-observable environments with subjective time-dependent safety constraints. Mathematically, we model the system…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-04-06 Yu Wang , Alper Kamil Bozkurt , Miroslav Pajic

A novel reinforcement learning scheme to synthesize policies for continuous-space Markov decision processes (MDPs) is proposed. This scheme enables one to apply model-free, off-the-shelf reinforcement learning algorithms for finite MDPs to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-03-03 Abolfazl Lavaei , Fabio Somenzi , Sadegh Soudjani , Ashutosh Trivedi , Majid Zamani
‹ Prev 1 2 3 10 Next ›