Related papers: The Gap Between Model-Based and Model-Free Methods…
Model-free approaches for reinforcement learning (RL) and continuous control find policies based only on past states and rewards, without fitting a model of the system dynamics. They are appealing as they are general purpose and easy to…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has been successfully used to solve many continuous control tasks. Despite its impressive results however, fundamental questions regarding the sample complexity of RL on continuous problems remain open. We study…
Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for real-world robotic applications need a data-efficient learning process and the ability to handle complex, unknown dynamical systems. These requirements are handled well by model-based and…
Many reinforcement learning methods achieve great success in practice but lack theoretical foundation. In this paper, we study the convergence analysis on the problem of the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR). The global linear convergence…
We study the sample complexity of approximate policy iteration (PI) for the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), building on a recent line of work using LQR as a testbed to understand the limits of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms on…
Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, such as Q-learning, directly parameterize and update value functions or policies without explicitly modeling the environment. They are typically simpler, more flexible to use, and thus more…
Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful, general tool for learning complex behaviors. However, its sample efficiency is often impractically large for solving challenging real-world problems, even with off-policy algorithms such…
Direct policy gradient methods for reinforcement learning and continuous control problems are a popular approach for a variety of reasons: 1) they are easy to implement without explicit knowledge of the underlying model 2) they are an…
We consider the task of learning to control a linear dynamical system under fixed quadratic costs, known as the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) problem. While model-free approaches are often favorable in practice, thus far only model-based…
The sample inefficiency of reinforcement learning (RL) remains a significant challenge in robotics. RL requires large-scale simulation and can still cause long training times, slowing research and innovation. This issue is particularly…
Model-based Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a popular learning paradigm due to its potential sample efficiency compared to model-free RL. However, existing empirical model-based RL approaches lack the ability to explore. This work studies a…
Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) is inherently a reactive method, operating under the assumption that it starts with no prior knowledge of the system and entirely depends on trial-and-error for learning. This approach faces several…
Reinforcement learning is able to solve complex sequential decision-making tasks but is currently limited by sample efficiency and required computation. To improve sample efficiency, recent work focuses on model-based RL which interleaves…
Model-free learning-based control methods have seen great success recently. However, such methods typically suffer from poor sample complexity and limited convergence guarantees. This is in sharp contrast to classical model-based control,…
Model-free algorithms are brought into the control system's research with the emergence of reinforcement learning algorithms. However, there are two practical challenges of reinforcement learning-based methods. First, learning by…
Model-based reinforcement learning (RL) has proven to be a data efficient approach for learning control tasks but is difficult to utilize in domains with complex observations such as images. In this paper, we present a method for learning…
This manuscript surveys reinforcement learning from the perspective of optimization and control with a focus on continuous control applications. It surveys the general formulation, terminology, and typical experimental implementations of…
The goal of reinforcement learning (RL) is to let an agent learn an optimal control policy in an unknown environment so that future expected rewards are maximized. The model-free RL approach directly learns the policy based on data samples.…
While reinforcement learning (RL) methods that learn an internal model of the environment have the potential to be more sample efficient than their model-free counterparts, learning to model raw observations from high dimensional sensors…
Training sophisticated agents for optimal decision-making under uncertainty has been key to the rapid development of modern autonomous systems across fields. Notably, model-free reinforcement learning (RL) has enabled decision-making agents…