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It is believed that a model-based approach for reinforcement learning (RL) is the key to reduce sample complexity. However, the understanding of the sample optimality of model-based RL is still largely missing, even for the linear case.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-20 Qiwen Cui , Lin F. Yang

The goal of this paper is to make a strong point for the usage of dynamical models when using reinforcement learning (RL) for feedback control of dynamical systems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs). To breach the gap between…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-14 Stefan Werner , Sebastian Peitz

We consider the static output feedback control for Linear Quadratic Regulator problems with structured constraints under the assumption that system parameters are unknown. To solve the problem in the model free setting, we propose the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-21 Shokichi Takakura , Kazuhiro Sato

Recent model-free reinforcement learning algorithms have proposed incorporating learned dynamics models as a source of additional data with the intention of reducing sample complexity. Such methods hold the promise of incorporating imagined…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-02 Vladimir Feinberg , Alvin Wan , Ion Stoica , Michael I. Jordan , Joseph E. Gonzalez , Sergey Levine

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an effective approach for solving optimal control problems without knowing the exact information of the system model. However, the classical Q-learning method, a model-free RL algorithm, has its limitations,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-04 Xiushan Jiang , Weihai Zhang

We study the optimal sample complexity in large-scale Reinforcement Learning (RL) problems with policy space generalization, i.e. the agent has a prior knowledge that the optimal policy lies in a known policy space. Existing results show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-18 Wenlong Mou , Zheng Wen , Xi Chen

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a method for learning decision-making tasks that could enable robots to learn and adapt to their situation on-line. For an RL algorithm to be practical for robotic control tasks, it must learn in very few…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2015-03-19 Todd Hester , Michael Quinlan , Peter Stone

Model-free Reinforcement Learning (RL) generally suffers from poor sample complexity, mostly due to the need to exhaustively explore the state-action space to find well-performing policies. On the other hand, we postulate that expert…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-13 Loris Di Natale , Bratislav Svetozarevic , Philipp Heer , Colin N. Jones

Model-free Reinforcement Learning (RL) works well when experience can be collected cheaply and model-based RL is effective when system dynamics can be modeled accurately. However, both assumptions can be violated in real world problems such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-07 Mohak Bhardwaj , Ankur Handa , Dieter Fox , Byron Boots

This paper discusses learning a structured feedback control to obtain sufficient robustness to exogenous inputs for linear dynamic systems with unknown state matrix. The structural constraint on the controller is necessary for many…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-02-23 Sayak Mukherjee , Thanh Long Vu

Model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) methods have been successful in a wide variety of simulated domains. However, a major obstacle facing deep RL in the real world is their high sample complexity. Batch policy gradient methods offer…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-03-01 Shixiang Gu , Timothy Lillicrap , Zoubin Ghahramani , Richard E. Turner , Sergey Levine

We study model-free learning methods for the output-feedback Linear Quadratic (LQ) control problem in finite-horizon subject to subspace constraints on the control policy. Subspace constraints naturally arise in the field of distributed…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-07-14 Luca Furieri , Yang Zheng , Maryam Kamgarpour

A fundamental question in the theory of reinforcement learning is: suppose the optimal $Q$-function lies in the linear span of a given $d$ dimensional feature mapping, is sample-efficient reinforcement learning (RL) possible? The recent and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-22 Yuanhao Wang , Ruosong Wang , Sham M. Kakade

In this paper, we leverage ideas from model-based control to address the sample efficiency problem of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. Accelerating learning is an active field of RL highly relevant in the context of time-varying…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-05-23 Ibrahim Ahmed , Marcos Quinones-Grueiro , Gautam Biswas

Reinforcement Learning (RL) serves as a versatile framework for sequential decision-making, finding applications across diverse domains such as robotics, autonomous driving, recommendation systems, supply chain optimization, biology,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-26 Vaneet Aggarwal , Washim Uddin Mondal , Qinbo Bai

We apply reinforcement learning (RL) to robotics tasks. One of the drawbacks of traditional RL algorithms has been their poor sample efficiency. One approach to improve the sample efficiency is model-based RL. In our model-based RL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-16 Adithya Ramesh , Balaraman Ravindran

As a paradigm for sequential decision making in unknown environments, reinforcement learning (RL) has received a flurry of attention in recent years. However, the explosion of model complexity in emerging applications and the presence of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-07-22 Yuejie Chi , Yuxin Chen , Yuting Wei

This paper studies the control synthesis of motion planning subject to uncertainties. The uncertainties are considered in robot motions and environment properties, giving rise to the probabilistic labeled Markov decision process (PL-MDP). A…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-01-31 Mingyu Cai , Shaoping Xiao , Zhijun Li , Zhen Kan

Planning methods can solve temporally extended sequential decision making problems by composing simple behaviors. However, planning requires suitable abstractions for the states and transitions, which typically need to be designed by hand.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-20 Soroush Nasiriany , Vitchyr H. Pong , Steven Lin , Sergey Levine

We present an algorithm for local, regularized, policy improvement in reinforcement learning (RL) that allows us to formulate model-based and model-free variants in a single framework. Our algorithm can be interpreted as a natural extension…