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Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-06-14 Sebastian Arming , Ezio Bartocci , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Joost-Pieter Katoen , Ana Sokolova

The goal of a traditional Markov decision process (MDP) is to maximize expected cumulative reward over a defined horizon (possibly infinite). In many applications, however, a decision maker may be interested in optimizing a specific…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Xiaocheng Li , Huaiyang Zhong , Margaret L. Brandeau

We study a class of infinite-horizon average-cost Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) whose reward and transition structures are nearly separable. For the totally separable baseline (that is, with no perturbation), we derive an explicit…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-28 Dhairya Kantawala

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a risk measure of variability in cost, under the risk-aware MDPs paradigm. Previous studies showed that risk-aware MDPs, based on a minimax approach to handling risk, can be…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2017-05-17 Pengqian Yu , William B. Haskell , Huan Xu

The online Markov decision process (MDP) is a generalization of the classical Markov decision process that incorporates changing reward functions. In this paper, we propose practical online MDP algorithms with policy iteration and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2015-10-16 Yao Ma , Hao Zhang , Masashi Sugiyama

Robust Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are receiving much attention in learning a robust policy which is less sensitive to environment changes. There are an increasing number of works analyzing sample-efficiency of robust MDPs. However,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-09-13 Wenhao Yang , Han Wang , Tadashi Kozuno , Scott M. Jordan , Zhihua Zhang

In this paper, we consider risk-sensitive Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with Borel state and action spaces and unbounded cost under both finite and infinite planning horizons. Our optimality criterion is based on the recursive…

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

A basic model in sequential decision making is the Markov decision process (MDP), which is extended to Robust MDPs (RMDPs) by allowing uncertainty in transition probabilities and optimizing against the worst-case transition probabilities…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Ali Asadi , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Alipasha Montaseri , Ali Shafiee

Value iteration is a commonly used and empirically competitive method in solving many Markov decision process problems. However, it is known that value iteration has only pseudo-polynomial complexity in general. We establish a somewhat…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-01-07 Omid Madani

We consider a dynamic programming (DP) approach to approximately solving an infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problem with a fixed initial-state for the expected total discounted-reward criterion with a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-08-08 Hyeong Soo Chang

Partially observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are a standard model for agents making decisions in uncertain environments. Most work on POMDPs focuses on synthesizing strategies based on the available capabilities. However, system…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-07-12 Alyzia-Maria Konsta , Alberto Lluch Lafuente , Christoph Matheja

A Markov decision process can be parameterized by a transition kernel and a reward function. Both play essential roles in the study of reinforcement learning as evidenced by their presence in the Bellman equations. In our inquiry of various…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-04 Falcon Z. Dai

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

We consider Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) where the rewards are unknown and may change in an adversarial manner. We provide an algorithm that achieves state-of-the-art regret bound of $O( \sqrt{\tau (\ln|S|+\ln|A|)T}\ln(T))$, where $S$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-28 Adrian Rivera Cardoso , He Wang , Huan Xu

Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) address the challenge of model uncertainty by optimizing the worst-case performance over an uncertainty set of MDPs. In this paper, we focus on the robust average-reward MDPs under the model-free…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-19 Yue Wang , Alvaro Velasquez , George Atia , Ashley Prater-Bennette , Shaofeng Zou

Value iteration is a fundamental algorithm for solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). It computes the maximal $n$-step payoff by iterating $n$ times a recurrence equation which is naturally associated to the MDP. At the same time, value…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2019-04-30 Nikhil Balaji , Stefan Kiefer , Petr Novotný , Guillermo A. Pérez , Mahsa Shirmohammadi

We consider the problem of controlling a Markov decision process (MDP) with a large state space, so as to minimize average cost. Since it is intractable to compete with the optimal policy for large scale problems, we pursue the more modest…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-02-28 Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Peter L. Bartlett , Alan Malek

We study the policy testing problem in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the fixed-confidence setting under a generative model with static sampling. The goal is to decide whether the value of a given policy exceeds a specified…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-21 Kaito Ariu , Po-An Wang , Alexandre Proutiere , Kenshi Abe

Markov decision processes (MDP) are a well-established model for sequential decision-making in the presence of probabilities. In robust MDP (RMDP), every action is associated with an uncertainty set of probability distributions, modelling…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-12-16 Tobias Meggendorfer , Maximilian Weininger , Patrick Wienhöft

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are standard models for probabilistic systems with non-deterministic behaviours. Long-run average rewards provide a mathematically elegant formalism for expressing long term performance. Value iteration (VI)…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2017-09-01 Pranav Ashok , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Przemyslaw Daca , Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer