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Reinforcement learning (RL) has seen significant research and application results but often requires large amounts of training data. This paper proposes two data-efficient off-policy RL methods that use parametrized Q-learning. In these…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-04-09 J. S. van Hulst , W. P. M. H. Heemels , D. J. Antunes

This paper addresses the problem of learning optimal control policies for systems with uncertain dynamics and high-level control objectives specified as Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formulas. Uncertainty is considered in the workspace…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-10-17 Yiannis Kantaros , Jun Wang

Modern reinforcement learning (RL) often faces an enormous state-action space. Existing analytical results are typically for settings with a small number of state-actions, or simple models such as linearly modeled Q-functions. To derive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-03 Sing-Yuan Yeh , Fu-Chieh Chang , Chang-Wei Yueh , Pei-Yuan Wu , Alberto Bernacchia , Sattar Vakili

We prove a fundamental limitation on the efficiency of a wide class of Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms. This limitation applies to model-free RL methods as well as a broad range of model-based methods, such as planning with tree…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-29 Brieuc Pinon , Raphaël Jungers , Jean-Charles Delvenne

A common pipeline in learning-based control is to iteratively estimate a model of system dynamics, and apply a trajectory optimization algorithm - e.g.~$\mathtt{iLQR}$ - on the learned model to minimize a target cost. This paper conducts a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-17 Daniel Pfrommer , Max Simchowitz , Tyler Westenbroek , Nikolai Matni , Stephen Tu

This paper considers a class of reinforcement learning problems, which involve systems with two types of states: stochastic and pseudo-stochastic. In such systems, stochastic states follow a stochastic transition kernel while the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-09 Honghao Wei , Xin Liu , Weina Wang , Lei Ying

In reinforcement learning (RL), an autonomous agent learns to perform complex tasks by maximizing an exogenous reward signal while interacting with its environment. In real-world applications, test conditions may differ substantially from…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-10-30 Matteo Turchetta , Andreas Krause , Sebastian Trimpe

Model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) aims to learn a dynamic model to reduce the number of interactions with real-world environments. However, due to estimation error, rollouts in the learned model, especially those of long horizons,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-17 Yueh-Hua Wu , Ting-Han Fan , Peter J. Ramadge , Hao Su

Model-based reinforcement learning aims to increase sample efficiency, but the accuracy of dynamics models and the resulting compounding errors are often seen as key limitations. This paper empirically investigates potential sample…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-31 Daniel Palenicek , Michael Lutter , João Carvalho , Daniel Dennert , Faran Ahmad , Jan Peters

Lately, data-driven control has become a widespread area of research. A few recent big-data based approaches for data-driven control of nonlinear systems try to use classical input-output techniques to design controllers for systems for…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-07-15 Miel Sharf

The need for algorithms able to solve Reinforcement Learning (RL) problems with few trials has motivated the advent of model-based RL methods. The reported performance of model-based algorithms has dramatically increased within recent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-22 Giacomo Arcieri , David Wölfle , Eleni Chatzi

We revisit the problem of controlling linear systems with quadratic cost under unknown dynamics with model-based reinforcement learning. Traditional methods like Optimism in the Face of Uncertainty and Thompson Sampling, rooted in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Waris Radji , Odalric-Ambrym Maillard

Combining model-based and model-free learning systems has been shown to improve the sample efficiency of learning to perform complex robotic tasks. However, dual-system approaches fail to consider the reliability of the learned model when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-03 Muhammad Burhan Hafez , Cornelius Weber , Matthias Kerzel , Stefan Wermter

Learning-based approaches, notably Reinforcement Learning (RL), have shown promise for solving optimal control tasks without explicit system models. However, these approaches are often sample-inefficient, sensitive to reward design and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-04 Lihan Lian , Uduak Inyang-Udoh

Feedback control problems involving autonomous quadratic systems are prevalent, yet there are only a limited number of software tools available for approximating their solution due to the complexity of the problem. This paper represents a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-10-09 Jeff Borggaard , Lizette Zietsman

We present a reinforcement learning (RL) framework to synthesize a control policy from a given linear temporal logic (LTL) specification in an unknown stochastic environment that can be modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP).…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-07 Alper Kamil Bozkurt , Yu Wang , Michael M. Zavlanos , Miroslav Pajic

Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful approach for learning control policies directly from high-dimensional state and observation. However, it tends to be data-inefficient, which is especially costly in robotic learning…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-10-14 Xubo Lyu , Mo Chen

In recent times, reinforcement learning has produced baffling results when it comes to performing control tasks with highly non-linear systems. The impressive results always outweigh the potential vulnerabilities or uncertainties associated…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-11-14 Arshad Javeed

Robotic assembly presents a long-standing challenge due to its requirement for precise, contact-rich manipulation. While simulation-based learning has enabled the development of robust assembly policies, their performance often degrades…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-02-27 Yijie Guo , Iretiayo Akinola , Lars Johannsmeier , Hugo Hadfield , Abhishek Gupta , Yashraj Narang

Model-based reinforcement learning (RL), which finds an optimal policy using an empirical model, has long been recognized as one of the corner stones of RL. It is especially suitable for multi-agent RL (MARL), as it naturally decouples the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-10 Kaiqing Zhang , Sham M. Kakade , Tamer Başar , Lin F. Yang