Related papers: Hierarchical State Abstractions for Decision-Makin…
We propose a principled kernel-based policy iteration algorithm to solve the continuous-state Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). In contrast to most decision-theoretic planning frameworks, which assume fully known state transition models, we…
This paper studies discrete-time average-cost infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with Borel state and action sets. It introduces new sufficient conditions for { the} validity of optimality inequalities and optimality…
Efficient representations and solutions for large decision problems with continuous and discrete variables are among the most important challenges faced by the designers of automated decision support systems. In this paper, we describe a…
Online learning algorithms are designed to perform in non-stationary environments, but generally there is no notion of a dynamic state to model constraints on current and future actions as a function of past actions. State-based models are…
Policy Iteration (PI) is a widely used family of algorithms to compute optimal policies for Markov Decision Problems (MDPs). We derive upper bounds on the running time of PI on Deterministic MDPs (DMDPs): the class of MDPs in which every…
We investigate the use of temporally abstract actions, or macro-actions, in the solution of Markov decision processes. Unlike current models that combine both primitive actions and macro-actions and leave the state space unchanged, we…
We present a heuristic search algorithm for solving first-order MDPs (FOMDPs). Our approach combines first-order state abstraction that avoids evaluating states individually, and heuristic search that avoids evaluating all states. Firstly,…
This paper investigates MDPs with intermittent state information. We consider a scenario where the controller perceives the state information of the process via an unreliable communication channel. The transmissions of state information…
Value iteration is a well-known method of solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) that is simple to implement and boasts strong theoretical convergence guarantees. However, the computational cost of value iteration quickly becomes…
This paper investigates a class of optimal control problems associated with Markov processes with local state information. The decision-maker has only local access to a subset of a state vector information as often encountered in…
We consider an auto-scaling technique in a cloud system where virtual machines hosted on a physical node are turned on and off depending on the queue's occupation (or thresholds), in order to minimise a global cost integrating both energy…
In this paper, we study a mean-variance optimization problem in an infinite horizon discrete time discounted Markov decision process (MDP). The objective is to minimize the variance of system rewards with the constraint of mean performance.…
This paper focuses on managing the cost of deliberation before action. In many problems, the overall quality of the solution reflects costs incurred and resources consumed in deliberation as well as the cost and benefit of execution, when…
Within the framework of probably approximately correct Markov decision processes (PAC-MDP), much theoretical work has focused on methods to attain near optimality after a relatively long period of learning and exploration. However,…
In this paper, we develop a framework for path-planning on abstractions that are not provided to the agent a priori but instead emerge as a function of the available computational resources. We show how a path-planning problem in an…
Although many real-world stochastic planning problems are more naturally formulated by hybrid models with both discrete and continuous variables, current state-of-the-art methods cannot adequately address these problems. We present the…
The Bayes-Adaptive Markov Decision Process (BAMDP) formalism pursues the Bayes-optimal solution to the exploration-exploitation trade-off in reinforcement learning. As the computation of exact solutions to Bayesian reinforcement-learning…
We present a heuristic search algorithm for solving first-order Markov Decision Processes (FOMDPs). Our approach combines first-order state abstraction that avoids evaluating states individually, and heuristic search that avoids evaluating…
We consider the problem of controlling a Markov decision process (MDP) with a large state space, so as to minimize average cost. Since it is intractable to compete with the optimal policy for large scale problems, we pursue the more modest…
In Passive POMDPs actions do not affect the world state, but still incur costs. When the agent is bounded by information-processing constraints, it can only keep an approximation of the belief. We present a variational principle for the…