Related papers: Proper Policies in Infinite-State Stochastic Short…
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…
The main objective of this paper is to develop a martingale-type solution to optimal consumption--investment choice problems ([Merton, 1969] and [Merton, 1971]) under time-varying incomplete preferences driven by externalities such as…
The infinite horizon setting is widely adopted for problems of reinforcement learning (RL). These invariably result in stationary policies that are optimal. In many situations, finite horizon control problems are of interest and for such…
We study the optimal control of path-dependent piecewise deterministic processes. An appropriate dynamic programming principle is established. We prove that the associated value function is the unique minimax solution of the corresponding…
Policy optimization methods are one of the most widely used classes of Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms. However, theoretical understanding of these methods remains insufficient. Even in the episodic (time-inhomogeneous) tabular…
Learned action policies are increasingly popular in sequential decision-making, but suffer from a lack of safety guarantees. Recent work introduced a pipeline for testing the safety of such policies under initial-state and action-outcome…
We propose a machine learning algorithm for solving finite-horizon stochastic control problems based on a deep neural network representation of the optimal policy functions. The algorithm has three features: (1) It can solve…
Probabilistic guarantees of safety and performance are important in constrained dynamical systems with stochastic uncertainty. We consider the stochastic reachability problem, which maximizes the probability that the state remains within…
We study an agent's lifecycle portfolio choice problem with stochastic labor income, borrowing constraints and a finite retirement date. Similarly to arXiv:2002.00201, wages evolve in a path-dependent way, but the presence of a finite…
We present a dynamic programming-based solution to a stochastic optimal control problem up to a hitting time for a discrete-time Markov control process. Firstly, we determine an optimal control policy to steer the process toward a compact…
Optimization of decision problems in stochastic environments is usually concerned with maximizing the probability of achieving the goal and minimizing the expected episode length. For interacting agents in time-critical applications,…
We study a fundamental stochastic selection problem involving $n$ independent random variables, each of which can be queried at some cost. Given a tolerance level $\delta$, the goal is to find a value that is $\delta$-approximately minimum…
In this article, we provide a numerical method based on fitted finite volume method to approximate the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation coming from stochastic optimal control problems. The computational challenge is due to the nature…
In this paper, we consider a class of continuous-time, continuous-space stochastic optimal control problems. Building upon recent advances in Markov chain approximation methods and sampling-based algorithms for deterministic path planning,…
In this paper, we demonstrate that policy iteration, introduced in the context of HJB equations in [Forsyth & Labahn, 2007], is an extremely simple generic algorithm for solving linear complementarity problems resulting from the finite…
We consider a pathwise stochastic optimal control problem and study the associated (not necessarily adapted) Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman stochastic partial differential equation. We show that the value process is the unique solution of this…
In this work we address the problem of finding feasible policies for Constrained Markov Decision Processes under probability one constraints. We argue that stationary policies are not sufficient for solving this problem, and that a rich…
In this study, we consider an optimal control problem driven by a stochastic differential system with a stopping time terminal cost functional. We establish the stochastic maximum principle for this new kind of an optimal control problem by…
Time-consistency is an essential requirement in risk sensitive optimal control problems to make rational decisions. An optimization problem is time consistent if its solution policy does not depend on the time sequence of solving the…
We revisit the incremental autonomous exploration problem proposed by Lim & Auer (2012). In this setting, the agent aims to learn a set of near-optimal goal-conditioned policies to reach the $L$-controllable states: states that are…