Related papers: An Empirical Dynamic Programming Algorithm for Con…
Dynamic programming (DP) is a fundamental tool used across many engineering fields. The main goal of DP is to solve Bellman's optimality equations for a given Markov decision process (MDP). Standard methods like policy iteration exploit the…
This dissertation makes three main contributions. First, We identify a new connection between policy gradient and dynamic programming in MMDPs and propose the Coordinate Ascent Dynamic Programming (CADP) algorithm to compute a Markov policy…
This paper analyzes reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the average-reward criterion. We focus on Q-learning algorithms based on relative value iteration (RVI), which are model-free stochastic…
We present a general framework for applying machine-learning algorithms to the verification of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The primary goal of these techniques is to improve performance by avoiding an exhaustive exploration of the…
This paper addresses a fundamental issue central to approximation methods for solving large Markov decision processes (MDPs): how to automatically learn the underlying representation for value function approximation? A novel theoretically…
We consider the problem of approximating the reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDP) with uncountable (continuous) state and action spaces. While there are algorithms that, for special classes of such MDP, provide a…
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…
This paper considers an approximate dynamic matrix factor model that accounts for the time series nature of the data by explicitly modelling the time evolution of the factors. We study estimation of the model parameters based on the…
We consider dynamic programming problems with finite, discrete-time horizons and prohibitively high-dimensional, discrete state-spaces for direct computation of the value function from the Bellman equation. For the case that the value…
We consider a broad class of dynamic programming (DP) problems that involve a partially linear structure and some positivity properties in their system equation and cost function. We address deterministic and stochastic problems, possibly…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are formal models commonly used in sequential decision-making. MDPs capture the stochasticity that may arise, for instance, from imprecise actuators via probabilities in the transition function. However, in…
In supervised learning, we fit a single statistical model to a given data set, assuming that the data is associated with a singular task, which yields well-tuned models for specific use, but does not adapt well to new contexts. By contrast,…
We formally verify executable algorithms for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the interactive theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. We build on existing formalizations of probability theory to analyze the expected total reward criterion…
Risk-averse total-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) offer a promising framework for modeling and solving undiscounted infinite-horizon objectives. Existing model-based algorithms for risk measures like the entropic risk measure (ERM)…
Partially-Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) are typically solved by finding an approximate global solution to a corresponding belief-MDP. In this paper, we offer a new planning algorithm for POMDPs with continuous state, action…
This paper proposes a computationally tractable algorithm for learning infinite-horizon average-reward linear Markov decision processes (MDPs) and linear mixture MDPs under the Bellman optimality condition. While guaranteeing computational…
We propose a novel deterministic sampling method to approximate a target distribution $\rho^*$ by minimizing the kernel discrepancy, also known as the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD). By employing the general \emph{energetic variational…
Global information about dynamical systems can be extracted by analysing associated infinite-dimensional transfer operators, such as Perron-Frobenius and Koopman operators as well as their infinitesimal generators. In practice, these…
This paper addresses the problem of planning under uncertainty in large Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Factored MDPs represent a complex state space using state variables and the transition model using a dynamic Bayesian network. This…
Motion planning under uncertainty for an autonomous system can be formulated as a Markov Decision Process with a continuous state space. In this paper, we propose a novel solution to this decision-theoretic planning problem that directly…