Related papers: Stochastic Variance Reduction for Policy Gradient …
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is commonly used for optimization in large-scale machine learning problems. Langford et al. (2009) introduce a sparse online learning method to induce sparsity via truncated gradient. With high-dimensional…
We propose a trust region method for policy optimization that employs Quasi-Newton approximation for the Hessian, called Quasi-Newton Trust Region Policy Optimization QNTRPO. Gradient descent is the de facto algorithm for reinforcement…
In this paper, we introduce a new stochastic approximation (SA) type algorithm, namely the randomized stochastic gradient (RSG) method, for solving an important class of nonlinear (possibly nonconvex) stochastic programming (SP) problems.…
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…
We explore reinforcement learning methods for finding the optimal policy in the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) problem. In particular, we consider the convergence of policy gradient methods in the setting of known and unknown parameters.…
In this paper, we consider to improve the stochastic variance reduce gradient (SVRG) method via incorporating the curvature information of the objective function. We propose to reduce the variance of stochastic gradients using the…
We propose Fractional Policy Gradients (FPG), a reinforcement learning framework incorporating fractional calculus for long-term temporal modeling in policy optimization. Standard policy gradient approaches face limitations from Markovian…
In this contribution, we present a numerical analysis of the continuous stochastic gradient (CSG) method, including applications from topology optimization and convergence rates. In contrast to standard stochastic gradient optimization…
Selecting key variables from high-dimensional data is increasingly important in the era of big data. Sparse regression serves as a powerful tool for this purpose by promoting model simplicity and explainability. In this work, we revisit a…
System stabilization via policy gradient (PG) methods has drawn increasing attention in both control and machine learning communities. In this paper, we study their convergence and sample complexity for stabilizing linear time-invariant…
We develop an approach for solving time-consistent risk-sensitive stochastic optimization problems using model-free reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, we assume agents assess the risk of a sequence of random variables using dynamic…
In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) systems with general goals beyond a cumulative sum of rewards have gained traction, such as in constrained problems, exploration, and acting upon prior experiences. In this paper, we consider…
Reinforcement learning (RL) with sparse and deceptive rewards is challenging because non-zero rewards are rarely obtained. Hence, the gradient calculated by the agent can be stochastic and without valid information. Recent studies that…
Stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) algorithms have been shown to work favorably in solving large-scale learning problems. Despite the remarkable success, the stochastic gradient complexity of SVRG-type algorithms usually scales…
We develop an efficient stochastic variance reduced gradient descent algorithm to solve the affine rank minimization problem consists of finding a matrix of minimum rank from linear measurements. The proposed algorithm as a stochastic…
Recent analyses of certain gradient descent optimization methods have shown that performance can degrade in some settings - such as with stochasticity or implicit momentum. In deep reinforcement learning (Deep RL), such optimization methods…
In this paper, we present a novel derivative-free optimization framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems. Many problems in fields ranging from simulation optimization to reinforcement learning involve settings…
Managing risk in dynamic decision problems is of cardinal importance in many fields such as finance and process control. The most common approach to defining risk is through various variance related criteria such as the Sharpe Ratio or the…
Direct optimization is an appealing framework that replaces integration with optimization of a random objective for approximating gradients in models with discrete random variables. A$^\star$ sampling is a framework for optimizing such…
Modern deep policy gradient methods achieve effective performance on simulated robotic tasks, but they all require large replay buffers or expensive batch updates, or both, making them incompatible for real systems with resource-limited…