Related papers: Solving Multi-Objective MDP with Lexicographic Pre…
Optimal decision-making under partial observability requires agents to balance reducing uncertainty (exploration) against pursuing immediate objectives (exploitation). In this paper, we introduce a novel policy optimization framework for…
We study a class of multi-stage stochastic programs, which incorporate modeling features from Markov decision processes (MDPs). This class includes structured MDPs with continuous action and state spaces. We extend policy graphs to include…
A popular perspective in Reinforcement learning (RL) casts the problem as probabilistic inference on a graphical model of the Markov decision process (MDP). The core object of study is the probability of each state-action pair being visited…
In robust Markov decision processes (MDPs), the uncertainty in the transition kernel is addressed by finding a policy that optimizes the worst-case performance over an uncertainty set of MDPs. While much of the literature has focused on…
Factored Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a prominent paradigm within the artificial intelligence community for modeling and solving large-scale MDPs whose rewards and dynamics decompose into smaller, loosely interacting components.…
Finding different solutions to the same problem is a key aspect of intelligence associated with creativity and adaptation to novel situations. In reinforcement learning, a set of diverse policies can be useful for exploration, transfer,…
Integrated task and motion planning has emerged as a challenging problem in sequential decision making, where a robot needs to compute high-level strategy and low-level motion plans for solving complex tasks. While high-level strategies…
We study the common generalization of Markov decision processes (MDPs) with sets of transition probabilities, known as robust MDPs (RMDPs). A standard goal in RMDPs is to compute a policy that maximizes the expected return under an…
Autonomous systems often have logical constraints arising, for example, from safety, operational, or regulatory requirements. Such constraints can be expressed using temporal logic specifications. The system state is often partially…
We consider the problem of computing optimal policies in average-reward Markov decision processes. This classical problem can be formulated as a linear program directly amenable to saddle-point optimization methods, albeit with a number of…
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,…
Policy-based algorithms are among the most widely adopted techniques in model-free RL, thanks to their strong theoretical groundings and good properties in continuous action spaces. Unfortunately, these methods require precise and…
Markov decisions processes (MDPs) are becoming increasing popular as models of decision theoretic planning. While traditional dynamic programming methods perform well for problems with small state spaces, structured methods are needed for…
Probabilistic model checking can provide formal guarantees on the behavior of stochastic models relating to a wide range of quantitative properties, such as runtime, energy consumption or cost. But decision making is typically with respect…
A tenet of reinforcement learning is that the agent always observes rewards. However, this is not true in many realistic settings, e.g., a human observer may not always be available to provide rewards, sensors may be limited or…
Learning from Preferential Feedback (LfPF) plays an essential role in training Large Language Models, as well as certain types of interactive learning agents. However, a substantial gap exists between the theory and application of LfPF…
This paper shows that the optimal policy and value functions of a Markov Decision Process (MDP), either discounted or not, can be captured by a finite-horizon undiscounted Optimal Control Problem (OCP), even if based on an inexact model.…
There are no computationally feasible algorithms that provide solutions to the finite horizon Risk-sensitive Constrained Markov Decision Process (Risk-CMDP) problem, even for problems with moderate horizon. With an aim to design the same,…
We study an approach to policy selection for large relational Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). We consider a variant of approximate policy iteration (API) that replaces the usual value-function learning step with a learning step in policy…
This paper investigates manipulation of multiple unknown objects in a crowded environment. Because of incomplete knowledge due to unknown objects and occlusions in visual observations, object observations are imperfect and action success is…