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Reinforcement learning algorithms typically rely on the assumption that the environment dynamics and value function can be expressed in terms of a Markovian state representation. However, when state information is only partially observable,…

Model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) has shown its advantages in sample-efficiency over model-free reinforcement learning (MFRL). Despite the impressive results it achieves, it still faces a trade-off between the ease of data…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-17 Xiaoyu Tan , Chao Qu , Junwu Xiong , James Zhang

In this paper, we introduce a new class of parameterized controllers, drawing inspiration from Model Predictive Control (MPC). The controller resembles a Quadratic Programming (QP) solver of a linear MPC problem, with the parameters of the…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-04-10 Yiwen Lu , Zishuo Li , Yihan Zhou , Na Li , Yilin Mo

Model-Predictive Control (MPC) is a powerful tool for controlling complex, real-world systems that uses a model to make predictions about future behavior. For each state encountered, MPC solves an online optimization problem to choose a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-15 Mohak Bhardwaj , Sanjiban Choudhury , Byron Boots

Training an agent to solve control tasks directly from high-dimensional images with model-free reinforcement learning (RL) has proven difficult. A promising approach is to learn a latent representation together with the control policy.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-10 Denis Yarats , Amy Zhang , Ilya Kostrikov , Brandon Amos , Joelle Pineau , Rob Fergus

Learning-based control approaches like reinforcement learning (RL) have recently produced a slew of impressive results for tasks like quadrotor trajectory tracking and drone racing. Naturally, it is common to demonstrate the advantages of…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-06-24 Pratik Kunapuli , Jake Welde , Dinesh Jayaraman , Vijay Kumar

Model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) is believed to have much higher sample efficiency compared to model-free algorithms by learning a predictive model of the environment. However, the performance of MBRL highly relies on the quality…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-16 Xin-Yang Liu , Jian-Xun Wang

Understanding how to efficiently learn while adhering to safety constraints is essential for using online reinforcement learning in practical applications. However, proving rigorous regret bounds for safety-constrained reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-04-29 Benjamin Schiffer , Lucas Janson

Reinforcement learning is a model-free optimal control method that optimizes a control policy through direct interaction with the environment. For reaching tasks that end in regulation, popular discrete-action methods are not well suited…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-06-23 Wouter Caarls

Setting up and controlling optical systems is often a challenging and tedious task. The high number of degrees of freedom to control mirrors, lenses, or phases of light makes automatic control challenging, especially when the complexity of…

By parametrizing input and state trajectories with basis functions different approximations to the constrained linear quadratic regulator problem are obtained. These notes present and discuss technical results that are intended to…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-03-16 Michael Muehlebach , Raffaello D'Andrea

This paper studies the constrained/safe reinforcement learning (RL) problem with sparse indicator signals for constraint violations. We propose a model-based approach to enable RL agents to effectively explore the environment with unknown…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-03-09 Zuxin Liu , Hongyi Zhou , Baiming Chen , Sicheng Zhong , Martial Hebert , Ding Zhao

Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) is a practical, scalable way to improve large language models on math, code, and other structured tasks. However, we argue that many headline RLVR gains are not yet well validated…

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are often categorized as either on-policy or off-policy depending on whether they use data from a target policy of interest or from a different behavior policy. In this paper, we study a subtle…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-12 Rujie Zhong , Duohan Zhang , Lukas Schäfer , Stefano V. Albrecht , Josiah P. Hanna

Developing generalist robots capable of mastering diverse skills remains a central challenge in embodied AI. While recent progress emphasizes scaling model parameters and offline datasets, such approaches are limited in robotics, where…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Shaohuai Liu , Weirui Ye , Yilun Du , Le Xie

We consider online reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic Markov decision processes (MDPs) under the linear $q^\pi$-realizability assumption, where it is assumed that the action-values of all policies can be expressed as linear functions…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-21 Gellért Weisz , András György , Csaba Szepesvári

This paper studies data-driven approaches to the continuous-time linear quadratic regulator (LQR) problem based on two existing parameterizations, namely a closed-loop (CL) parameterization from behavioral system theory and an integral…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-01 Armin Gießler , Felix Thömmes , Sören Hohmann

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms still suffer from high sample complexity despite outstanding recent successes. The need for intensive interactions with the environment is especially observed in many widely popular policy gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-04 Samuele Tosatto , Joao Carvalho , Hany Abdulsamad , Jan Peters

A common belief in model-free reinforcement learning is that methods based on random search in the parameter space of policies exhibit significantly worse sample complexity than those that explore the space of actions. We dispel such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-20 Horia Mania , Aurelia Guy , Benjamin Recht

Recent advances in applying reinforcement learning (RL) to large language models (LLMs) have led to substantial progress. In particular, a series of remarkable yet often counterintuitive phenomena have been reported in LLMs, exhibiting…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-03 Haoze Wu , Cheng Wang , Wenshuo Zhao , Junxian He