Related papers: Diverse Exploration for Fast and Safe Policy Impro…

Self-improvement requires robotic systems to initially learn from human-provided data and then gradually enhance their capabilities through interaction with the environment. This is similar to how humans improve their skills through…

A key challenge in reinforcement learning (RL) is managing the exploration-exploitation trade-off without sacrificing sample efficiency. Policy gradient (PG) methods excel in exploitation through fine-grained, gradient-based optimization…

Differential evolution (DE) algorithm is recognized as one of the most effective evolutionary algorithms, demonstrating remarkable efficacy in black-box optimization due to its derivative-free nature. Numerous enhancements to the…

Autonomous exploration requires robots to generate informative trajectories iteratively. Although sampling-based methods are highly efficient in unmanned aerial vehicle exploration, many of these methods do not effectively utilize the…

We propose an exploration method that incorporates look-ahead search over basic learnt skills and their dynamics, and use it for reinforcement learning (RL) of manipulation policies . Our skills are multi-goal policies learned in isolation…

Since Differential Evolution (DE) is sensitive to strategy choice, most existing variants pursue performance through adaptive mechanisms or intricate designs. While these approaches focus on adjusting strategies over time, the structural…

Black-box policy optimization is a class of reinforcement learning algorithms that explores and updates the policies at the parameter level. This class of algorithms is widely applied in robotics with movement primitives or…

Offline reinforcement learning (RL) looks at learning how to optimally solve tasks using a fixed dataset of interactions from the environment. Many off-policy algorithms developed for online learning struggle in the offline setting as they…

We analyze the problem of using Explore-Exploit techniques to improve precision in multi-result ranking systems such as web search, query autocompletion and news recommendation. Adopting an exploration policy directly online, without…

To survive in dynamic and uncertain environments, individuals must develop effective decision strategies that balance information gathering and decision commitment. Models of such strategies often prioritize either optimizing tangible…

As modern games continue growing both in size and complexity, it has become more challenging to ensure that all the relevant content is tested and that any potential issue is properly identified and fixed. Attempting to maximize testing…

Solving sparse reward tasks through exploration is one of the major challenges in deep reinforcement learning, especially in three-dimensional, partially-observable environments. Critically, the algorithm proposed in this article uses a…

Reinforcement learning (RL) has demonstrated notable success in post-training large language models (LLMs) as agents for tasks such as computer use, tool calling, and coding. However, exploration remains a central challenge in RL for LLM…

We consider the joint design and control of discrete-time stochastic dynamical systems over a finite time horizon. We formulate the problem as a multi-step optimization problem under uncertainty seeking to identify a system design and a…

Sufficient exploration is paramount for the success of a reinforcement learning agent. Yet, exploration is rarely assessed in an algorithm-independent way. We compare the behavior of three data-based, offline exploration metrics described…

For many applications of reinforcement learning it can be more convenient to specify both a reward function and constraints, rather than trying to design behavior through the reward function. For example, systems that physically interact…

Direct policy gradient methods for reinforcement learning are a successful approach for a variety of reasons: they are model free, they directly optimize the performance metric of interest, and they allow for richly parameterized policies.…

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful machine learning technique that enables an intelligent agent to learn an optimal policy that maximizes the cumulative rewards in sequential decision making. Most of methods in the existing…

LLM agents have shown strong performance across a wide range of complex tasks, including interactive environments that require long-horizon decision making. But these agents cannot learn on the fly at test time. Self-evolving agents address…

In this work, we provide an extended discussion of a new approach to explainable Reinforcement Learning called Diverse Near-Optimal Alternatives (DNA), first proposed at L4DC 2025. DNA seeks a set of reasonable "options" for…