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In the optimization of dynamic systems, the variables typically have constraints. Such problems can be modeled as a Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP). This paper considers the peak Constrained Markov Decision Process (PCMDP), where…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-06-15 Qinbo Bai , Vaneet Aggarwal , Ather Gattami

We consider finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes where parameters, such as transition probabilities, are unknown and estimated from data. The popular distributionally robust approach to addressing the parameter uncertainty can sometimes…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-10-07 Yifan Lin , Yuxuan Ren , Enlu Zhou

The problem of constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) is investigated, where an agent aims to maximize the expected accumulated discounted reward subject to multiple constraints on its utilities/costs. A new primal-dual approach is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-10-22 Tianjiao Li , Ziwei Guan , Shaofeng Zou , Tengyu Xu , Yingbin Liang , Guanghui Lan

We study infinite horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with "fast-slow" structure, where some state variables evolve rapidly ("fast states") while others change more gradually ("slow states"). This structure commonly arises in practice…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-28 Yijia Wang , Daniel R. Jiang

This note describes sufficient conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with general state and action spaces, and with weakly continuous transition probabilities, can be reduced to discounted MDPs.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-11-21 Eugene A. Feinberg , Jefferson Huang

We propose a new method for optimistic planning in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes based on the idea of adding regularization to the updates of an otherwise standard approximate value iteration procedure. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-16 Antoine Moulin , Gergely Neu

We study reinforcement learning (RL) with linear function approximation. For episodic time-inhomogeneous linear Markov decision processes (linear MDPs) whose transition probability can be parameterized as a linear function of a given…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-07 Jiafan He , Heyang Zhao , Dongruo Zhou , Quanquan Gu

In this paper, we provide a novel algorithm for solving planning and learning problems of Markov decision processes. The proposed algorithm follows a policy iteration-type update by using a rank-one approximation of the transition…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-23 Arman Sharifi Kolarijani , Tolga Ok , Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani , Mohamad Amin Sharif Kolarijani

We study robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) with general policy parameterization under s-rectangular and non-rectangular uncertainty sets. Prior work is largely limited to tabular policies, and hence either lacks sample complexity…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Anirudh Satheesh , Ziyi Chen , Furong Huang , Heng Huang

We consider the problem of learning the optimal action-value function in the discounted-reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). We prove a new PAC bound on the sample-complexity of model-based value iteration algorithm in the presence of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-07-03 Mohammad Gheshlaghi Azar , Remi Munos , Bert Kappen

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…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-07-13 Kush Grover , Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer , Maximilian Weininger

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…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-06-04 Junhong Xu , Kai Yin , Lantao Liu

We study discrete-time discounted constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) on Borel spaces with unbounded reward functions. In our approach the transition probability functions are weakly or set-wise continuous. The reward functions…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-03-29 Eugene A. Feinberg , Anna Jaśkiewicz , Andrzej S. Nowak

We present a general framework for applying learning algorithms and heuristical guidance to the verification of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The primary goal of our techniques is to improve performance by avoiding an exhaustive…

We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with multiple limit-average (or mean-payoff) objectives. There exist two different views: (i) the expectation semantics, where the goal is to optimize the expected mean-payoff objective, and (ii)…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2019-03-14 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Zuzana Křetínská , Jan Křetínský

We tackle the problem of acting in an unknown finite and discrete Markov Decision Process (MDP) for which the expected shortest path from any state to any other state is bounded by a finite number $D$. An MDP consists of $S$ states and $A$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-07-11 Aristide Tossou , Christos Dimitrakakis , Debabrota Basu

In this paper, we propose a novel policy iteration method, called dynamic policy programming (DPP), to estimate the optimal policy in the infinite-horizon Markov decision processes. We prove the finite-iteration and asymptotic l\infty-norm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-09-09 Mohammad Gheshlaghi Azar , Vicenc Gomez , Hilbert J. Kappen

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…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-11-20 Alessandro Abate , Thom Badings , Giuseppe De Giacomo , Francesco Fabiano

We study reward-free reinforcement learning (RL) with linear function approximation, where the agent works in two phases: (1) in the exploration phase, the agent interacts with the environment but cannot access the reward; and (2) in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-15 Junkai Zhang , Weitong Zhang , Quanquan Gu

The solution convergence of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) can be accelerated by prioritized sweeping of states ranked by their potential impacts to other states. In this paper, we present new heuristics to speed up the solution…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-01-07 Shoubhik Debnath , Lantao Liu , Gaurav Sukhatme