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We propose a solution to a time-varying variant of Markov Decision Processes which can be used to address decision-theoretic planning problems for autonomous systems operating in unstructured outdoor environments. We explore the time…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-05-28 Junhong Xu , Kai Yin , Lantao Liu

Policy gradient (PG) methods are successful approaches to deal with continuous reinforcement learning (RL) problems. They learn stochastic parametric (hyper)policies by either exploring in the space of actions or in the space of parameters.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-31 Alessandro Montenegro , Marco Mussi , Alberto Maria Metelli , Matteo Papini

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-16 Xin Guo , Aiko Kurushima , Alexey Piunovskiy , Yi Zhang

This paper investigates methods for estimating the optimal stochastic control policy for a Markov Decision Process with unknown transition dynamics and an unknown reward function. This form of model-free reinforcement learning comprises…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-06 Brandon Trabucco , Albert Qu , Simon Li , Ganeshkumar Ashokavardhanan

Despite the advances in probabilistic model checking, the scalability of the verification methods remains limited. In particular, the state space often becomes extremely large when instantiating parameterized Markov decision processes…

Probabilistic model checking for systems with large or unbounded state space is a challenging computational problem in formal modelling and its applications. Numerical algorithms require an explicit representation of the state space, while…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-06-12 Dimitrios Milios , Guido Sanguinetti , David Schnoerr

Policy gradient methods are extensively used in reinforcement learning as a way to optimize expected return. In this paper, we explore the evolution of the policy parameters, for a special class of exactly solvable POMDPs, as a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-04 Gavin McCracken , Colin Daniels , Rosie Zhao , Anna Brandenberger , Prakash Panangaden , Doina Precup

This article presents a constrained policy optimization approach for the optimal control of systems under nonstationary uncertainties. We introduce an assumption that we call Markov embeddability that allows us to cast the stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-11 Sungho Shin , François Pacaud , Emil Contantinescu , Mihai Anitescu

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a formal framework for modeling and solving sequential decision-making problems. In finite-time horizons such problems are relevant for instance for optimal stopping or specific supply chain problems,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-07 Sara Klein , Simon Weissmann , Leif Döring

Reinforcement learning consists of finding policies that maximize an expected cumulative long-term reward in a Markov decision process with unknown transition probabilities and instantaneous rewards. In this paper, we consider the problem…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-07-31 Santiago Paternain , Juan Andrés Bazerque , Austin Small , Alejandro Ribeiro

Policy gradient methods are widely used in reinforcement learning. Yet, the nonconvexity of policy optimization poses significant challenges in understanding the global convergence of policy gradient methods. For a class of finite-horizon…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Xin Chen , Yifan Hu , Minda Zhao

We study a new two-time-scale stochastic gradient method for solving optimization problems, where the gradients are computed with the aid of an auxiliary variable under samples generated by time-varying MDPs controlled by the underlying…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-27 Sihan Zeng , Thinh T. Doan , Justin Romberg

We consider synthesis of control policies that maximize the probability of satisfying given temporal logic specifications in unknown, stochastic environments. We model the interaction between the system and its environment as a Markov…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2014-05-01 Jie Fu , Ufuk Topcu

Multi-objective Markov decision processes are a special kind of multi-objective optimization problem that involves sequential decision making while satisfying the Markov property of stochastic processes. Multi-objective reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-22 Sherif Abdelfattah , Kathryn Kasmarik , Jiankun Hu

Problems arise when using reward functions to capture dependencies between sequential time-constrained goal states because the state-space must be prohibitively expanded to accommodate a history of successfully achieved sub-goals. Also,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-02-13 Thomas J. Ringstrom , Paul R. Schrater

Optimal Markov Decision Process policies for problems with finite state and action space are identified through a partial ordering by comparing the value function across states. This is referred to as state-based optimality. This paper…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-12-02 Dylan Solms

We study the problem of off-policy policy optimization in Markov decision processes, and develop a novel off-policy policy gradient method. Prior off-policy policy gradient approaches have generally ignored the mismatch between the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-07-09 Yao Liu , Adith Swaminathan , Alekh Agarwal , Emma Brunskill

Policy gradient methods hold great potential for solving complex continuous control tasks. Still, their training efficiency can be improved by exploiting structure within the optimization problem. Recent work indicates that supervised…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-19 Jan Schneider , Pierre Schumacher , Simon Guist , Le Chen , Daniel Häufle , Bernhard Schölkopf , Dieter Büchler

We develop a method for computing policies in Markov decision processes with risk-sensitive measures subject to temporal logic constraints. Specifically, we use a particular risk-sensitive measure from cumulative prospect theory, which has…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-04-21 Murat Cubuktepe , Ufuk Topcu

Controllable Markov chains describe the dynamics of sequential decision making tasks and are the central component in optimal control and reinforcement learning. In this work, we give the general form of an optimal policy for learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-24 Peter N. Loxley