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We present for the first time an asymptotic convergence analysis of two time-scale stochastic approximation driven by `controlled' Markov noise. In particular, both the faster and slower recursions have non-additive controlled Markov noise…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2017-02-28 Prasenjit Karmakar , Shalabh Bhatnagar

This paper addresses the problem of optimal control of robotic sensing systems aimed at autonomous information gathering in scenarios such as environmental monitoring, search and rescue, and surveillance and reconnaissance. The information…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2016-01-28 Mikko Lauri , Nikolay Atanasov , George J. Pappas , Risto Ritala

We consider sequential decision problems in which we adaptively choose one of finitely many alternatives and observe a stochastic reward. We offer a new perspective of interpreting Bayesian ranking and selection problems as adaptive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-06-16 Yingfei Wang , Warren Powell

We consider chance-constrained problems with discrete random distribution. We aim for problems with a large number of scenarios. We propose a novel method based on the stochastic gradient descent method which performs updates of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-05-28 Lukáš Adam , Martin Branda

Multi-objective optimization models that encode ordered sequential constraints provide a solution to model various challenging problems including encoding preferences, modeling a curriculum, and enforcing measures of safety. A recently…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-09-16 Kyle Hollins Wray , Stas Tiomkin , Mykel J. Kochenderfer , Pieter Abbeel

Policy gradient methods are reinforcement learning algorithms that adapt a parameterized policy by following a performance gradient estimate. Conventional policy gradient methods use Monte-Carlo techniques to estimate the gradient, which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Yaakov Engel , Michal Valko

We propose networked policy gradient play for solving Markov potential games with continuous and/or discrete state-action pairs. During the game, agents use parametrized and differentiable policies that depend on the current state and the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-02 Sarper Aydin , Ceyhun Eksin

Experience replay is a core ingredient of modern deep reinforcement learning, yet its benefits in policy optimization are poorly understood beyond empirical heuristics. This paper develops a novel theoretical framework for experience replay…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Hua Zheng , Wei Xie , M. Ben Feng

This paper studies the approximation of optimal control policies by quantized (discretized) policies for a very general class of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The problem is motivated by applications in networked control systems,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-05-14 Naci Saldi , Serdar Yüksel , Tamás Linder

This paper formed part of a preliminary research report for a risk consultancy and academic research. Stochastic Programming models provide a powerful paradigm for decision making under uncertainty. In these models the uncertainties are…

Computational Finance · Quantitative Finance 2009-04-08 Sovan Mitra

Stochastic optimal control problems have a long tradition in applied probability, with the questions addressed being of high relevance in a multitude of fields. Even though theoretical solutions are well understood in many scenarios, their…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2024-05-28 Sören Christensen , Claudia Strauch , Lukas Trottner

This paper studies the performative policy learning problem, where agents adjust their features in response to a released policy to improve their potential outcomes, inducing an endogenous distribution shift. There has been growing interest…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-25 Qianyi Chen , Ying Chen , Bo Li

One of the most fundamental problems in Markov decision processes is analysis and control synthesis for safety and reachability specifications. We consider the stochastic reach-avoid problem, in which the objective is to synthesize a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-09 Nikolaos Kariotoglou , Maryam Kamgarpour , Tyler Summers , John Lygeros

Sequential decision making using Markov Decision Process underpins many realworld applications. Both model-based and model free methods have achieved strong results in these settings. However, real-world tasks must balance reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-01 Janaka Chathuranga Brahmanage , Akshat Kumar

Markov decision processes model systems subject to nondeterministic and probabilistic uncertainty. A plethora of verification techniques addresses variations of reachability properties, such as: Is there a scheduler resolving the…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-05-26 Lina Gerlach , Tobias Winkler , Erika Ábrahám , Borzoo Bonakdarpour , Sebastian Junges

We propose policy gradient algorithms for solving a risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) problem in on-policy as well as off-policy settings. We consider episodic Markov decision processes, and model the risk using the broad class of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Nithia Vijayan , Prashanth L. A

In decentralized stochastic control, standard approaches for sequential decision-making, e.g. dynamic programming, quickly become intractable due to the need to maintain a complex information state. Computational challenges are further…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-08 Kaiqing Zhang , Erik Miehling , Tamer Başar

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (or minimize…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-07-07 Mahmoud El Chamie , Behcet Acikmese

We present a novel on-policy algorithm for solving stochastic optimal control (SOC) problems. By leveraging the Girsanov theorem, our method directly computes on-policy gradients of the SOC objective without expensive backpropagation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-14 Mengjian Hua , Mathieu Laurière , Eric Vanden-Eijnden

In this paper, we discuss the deterministic policy gradient using the Actor-Critic methods based on the linear compatible advantage function approximator, where the input spaces are continuous. When the policy is restricted by hard…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-04-07 Arash Bahari Kordabad , Hossein Nejatbakhsh Esfahani , Sebastien Gros