Related papers: Approximate Exploration through State Abstraction
Despite the close connection between exploration and sample efficiency, most state of the art reinforcement learning algorithms include no considerations for exploration beyond maximizing the entropy of the policy. In this work we address…
We introduce a new count-based optimistic exploration algorithm for Reinforcement Learning (RL) that is feasible in environments with high-dimensional state-action spaces. The success of RL algorithms in these domains depends crucially on…
The infamous exploration-exploitation dilemma is one of the oldest and most important problems in reinforcement learning (RL). Deliberate and effective exploration is necessary for RL agents to succeed in most environments. However, until…
In this work, we address the challenge of data-efficient exploration in reinforcement learning by examining existing principled, information-theoretic approaches to intrinsic motivation. Specifically, we focus on a class of exploration…
We consider an agent's uncertainty about its environment and the problem of generalizing this uncertainty across observations. Specifically, we focus on the problem of exploration in non-tabular reinforcement learning. Drawing inspiration…
Exploration in high-dimensional, continuous spaces with sparse rewards is an open problem in reinforcement learning. Artificial curiosity algorithms address this by creating rewards that lead to exploration. Given a reinforcement learning…
We present a modular approach to reinforcement learning that uses a Bayesian representation of the uncertainty over models. The approach, BOSS (Best of Sampled Set), drives exploration by sampling multiple models from the posterior and…
Count-based exploration algorithms are known to perform near-optimally when used in conjunction with tabular reinforcement learning (RL) methods for solving small discrete Markov decision processes (MDPs). It is generally thought that…
Effective and intelligent exploration has been an unresolved problem for reinforcement learning. Most contemporary reinforcement learning relies on simple heuristic strategies such as $\epsilon$-greedy exploration or adding Gaussian noise…
Exploration algorithms for reinforcement learning typically replace or augment the reward function with an additional ``intrinsic'' reward that trains the agent to seek previously unseen states of the environment. Here, we consider an…
Exploration bonuses in reinforcement learning guide long-horizon exploration by defining custom intrinsic objectives. Several exploration objectives like count-based bonuses, pseudo-counts, and state-entropy maximization are non-stationary…
High-dimensional observations and complex real-world dynamics present major challenges in reinforcement learning for both function approximation and exploration. We address both of these challenges with two complementary techniques: First,…
To rapidly learn a new task, it is often essential for agents to explore efficiently -- especially when performance matters from the first timestep. One way to learn such behaviour is via meta-learning. Many existing methods however rely on…
A promising technique for exploration is to maximize the entropy of visited state distribution, i.e., state entropy, by encouraging uniform coverage of visited state space. While it has been effective for an unsupervised setup, it tends to…
Bellemare et al. (2016) introduced the notion of a pseudo-count, derived from a density model, to generalize count-based exploration to non-tabular reinforcement learning. This pseudo-count was used to generate an exploration bonus for a…
Reinforcement learning systems are often concerned with balancing exploration of untested actions against exploitation of actions that are known to be good. The benefit of exploration can be estimated using the classical notion of Value of…
In this paper we present the extension of an existing method for abstract graph-based state space exploration, called neighbourhood abstraction, with a reduction technique based on subsumption. Basically, one abstract state subsumes another…
In this paper we introduce a simple approach for exploration in reinforcement learning (RL) that allows us to develop theoretically justified algorithms in the tabular case but that is also extendable to settings where function…
Exploration is critical to a reinforcement learning agent's performance in its given environment. Prior exploration methods are often based on using heuristic auxiliary predictions to guide policy behavior, lacking a mathematically-grounded…
Achieving efficient and scalable exploration in complex domains poses a major challenge in reinforcement learning. While Bayesian and PAC-MDP approaches to the exploration problem offer strong formal guarantees, they are often impractical…