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This work studies online episodic tabular Markov decision processes (MDPs) with known transitions and develops best-of-both-worlds algorithms that achieve refined data-dependent regret bounds in the adversarial regime and variance-dependent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Mingyi Li , Taira Tsuchiya , Kenji Yamanishi

We consider a risk-sensitive continuous-time Markov decision process over a finite time duration. Under the conditions that can be satisfied by unbounded transition and cost rates, we show the existence of an optimal policy, and the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-11-29 Xin Guo , Qiuli Liu , Yi Zhang

Canonical models of Markov decision processes (MDPs) usually consider geometric discounting based on a constant discount factor. While this standard modeling approach has led to many elegant results, some recent studies indicate the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-07-21 Jiarui Gan , Annika Hennes , Rupak Majumdar , Debmalya Mandal , Goran Radanovic

Although risk awareness is fundamental to an online operating agent, it has received less attention in the challenging continuous domain and under partial observability. This paper presents a novel formulation and solution for risk-averse…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-02-22 Andrey Zhitnikov , Vadim Indelman

We present metrics for measuring state similarity in Markov decision processes (MDPs) with infinitely many states, including MDPs with continuous state spaces. Such metrics provide a stable quantitative analogue of the notion of…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2012-07-09 Norman Ferns , Prakash Panangaden , Doina Precup

We introduce the Lyapunov approach to optimal control problems of average risk-sensitive Markov control processes with general risk maps. Motivated by applications in particular to behavioral economics, we consider possibly non-convex risk…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-07-23 Yun Shen , Klaus Obermayer , Wilhelm Stannat

We study risk-sensitive RL where the goal is learn a history-dependent policy that optimizes some risk measure of cumulative rewards. We consider a family of risks called the optimized certainty equivalents (OCE), which captures important…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-03 Kaiwen Wang , Dawen Liang , Nathan Kallus , Wen Sun

We investigate the problem of optimal control synthesis for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), addressing both qualitative and quantitative objectives. Specifically, we require the system to satisfy a qualitative task specified by a Linear…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-09-19 Yu Chen , Xuanyuan Yin , Shaoyuan Li , Xiang Yin

Risk-averse model predictive control (MPC) offers a control framework that allows one to account for ambiguity in the knowledge of the underlying probability distribution and unifies stochastic and worst-case MPC. In this paper we study…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-12-13 Pantelis Sopasakis , Domagoj Herceg , Alberto Bemporad , Panagiotis Patrinos

Optimizing risk-averse objectives in discounted MDPs is challenging because most models do not admit direct dynamic programming equations and require complex history-dependent policies. In this paper, we show that the risk-averse {\em total…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-15 Xihong Su , Julien Grand-Clément , Marek Petrik

We present a method for solving implicit (factored) Markov decision processes (MDPs) with very large state spaces. We introduce a property of state space partitions which we call epsilon-homogeneity. Intuitively, an epsilon-homogeneous…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-08 Thomas L. Dean , Robert Givan , Sonia Leach

We consider the problem of designing a control policy for an infinite-horizon discounted cost Markov decision process $\mathcal{M}$ when we only have access to an approximate model $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$. How well does an optimal policy…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-15 Berk Bozkurt , Aditya Mahajan , Ashutosh Nayyar , Yi Ouyang

This paper discusses a novel probabilistic approach for the design of robust model predictive control (MPC) laws for discrete-time linear systems affected by parametric uncertainty and additive disturbances. The proposed technique is based…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2013-07-16 Giuseppe C. Calafiore , Lorenzo Fagiano

Policy design in non-stationary Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is inherently challenging due to the complexities introduced by time-varying system transition and reward, which make it difficult for learners to determine the optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-17 Ziyi Zhang , Yorie Nakahira , Guannan Qu

We consider reinforcement learning for continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the infinite-horizon, average-reward setting. In contrast to discrete-time MDPs, a continuous-time process moves to a state and stays there for a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-03 Xuefeng Gao , Xun Yu Zhou

Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) provide a general framework to model decision problems where the system dynamics are changing or only partially known. Efficient methods for some \texttt{sa}-rectangular robust MDPs exist, using its…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-10-06 Navdeep Kumar , Kfir Levy , Kaixin Wang , Shie Mannor

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used to model a wide variety of applications ranging from game playing over robotics to finance. Their optimal policy typically maximizes the expected sum of rewards given at each step of the decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-26 Maximilian Nägele , Jan Olle , Thomas Fösel , Remmy Zen , Florian Marquardt

We study infinite-horizon average-reward constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the unichain assumption and general policy parameterizations. Existing regret analyses for constrained reinforcement learning largely rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-10 Anirudh Satheesh , Vaneet Aggarwal

Our goal is to compute a policy that guarantees improved return over a baseline policy even when the available MDP model is inaccurate. The inaccurate model may be constructed, for example, by system identification techniques when the true…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-06-17 Yinlam Chow , Marek Petrik , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

Probabilistic model checking aims to prove whether a Markov decision process (MDP) satisfies a temporal logic specification. The underlying methods rely on an often unrealistic assumption that the MDP is precisely known. Consequently,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-07-02 Murat Cubuktepe , Nils Jansen , Sebastian Junges , Joost-Pieter Katoen , Ufuk Topcu