Related papers: Policy Optimization with Stochastic Mirror Descent
In the paper, we design a novel Bregman gradient policy optimization framework for reinforcement learning based on Bregman divergences and momentum techniques. Specifically, we propose a Bregman gradient policy optimization (BGPO) algorithm…
We revisit the stochastic variance-reduced policy gradient (SVRPG) method proposed by Papini et al. (2018) for reinforcement learning. We provide an improved convergence analysis of SVRPG and show that it can find an $\epsilon$-approximate…
Value iteration-type methods have been extensively studied for computing a nearly optimal value function in reinforcement learning (RL). Under a generative sampling model, these methods can achieve sharper sample complexity than policy…
Mirror descent (MD), a well-known first-order method in constrained convex optimization, has recently been shown as an important tool to analyze trust-region algorithms in reinforcement learning (RL). However, there remains a considerable…
We propose a new family of policy gradient methods for reinforcement learning, which alternate between sampling data through interaction with the environment, and optimizing a "surrogate" objective function using stochastic gradient ascent.…
This paper studies the policy mirror descent (PMD) method, which is a general policy optimization framework in reinforcement learning and can cover a wide range of policy gradient methods by specifying difference mirror maps. Existing…
We develop a generic policy gradient method with the global optimality guarantee for robust Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). While policy gradient methods are widely used for solving dynamic decision problems due to their scalable and…
By leveraging differentiable dynamics, Reparameterization Policy Gradient (RPG) achieves high sample efficiency. However, current approaches are hindered by two critical limitations: the under-utilization of computationally expensive…
Improving the sample efficiency in reinforcement learning has been a long-standing research problem. In this work, we aim to reduce the sample complexity of existing policy gradient methods. We propose a novel policy gradient algorithm…
Policy optimization methods are powerful algorithms in Reinforcement Learning (RL) for their flexibility to deal with policy parameterization and ability to handle model misspecification. However, these methods usually suffer from slow…
In this paper, we propose a novel reinforcement- learning algorithm consisting in a stochastic variance-reduced version of policy gradient for solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Stochastic variance-reduced gradient (SVRG) methods…
We present new policy mirror descent (PMD) methods for solving reinforcement learning (RL) problems with either strongly convex or general convex regularizers. By exploring the structural properties of these overall highly nonconvex…
We consider the problem of solving robust Markov decision process (MDP), which involves a set of discounted, finite state, finite action space MDPs with uncertain transition kernels. The goal of planning is to find a robust policy that…
Safety is an essential requirement for reinforcement learning systems. The newly emerging framework of robust constrained Markov decision processes allows learning policies that satisfy long-term constraints while providing guarantees under…
Recent success in Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) methods has shown that policy optimization with respect to an off-policy distribution via importance sampling is effective for sample reuse. In this paper, we show that the use of…
Explicit exploration in the action space was assumed to be indispensable for online policy gradient methods to avoid a drastic degradation in sample complexity, for solving general reinforcement learning problems over finite state and…
We introduce a constrained optimization method for policy gradient reinforcement learning, which uses a virtual trust region to regulate each policy update. In addition to using the proximity of one single old policy as the normal trust…
Markov Decision Processes are classically solved using Value Iteration and Policy Iteration algorithms. Recent interest in Reinforcement Learning has motivated the study of methods inspired by optimization, such as gradient ascent. Among…
We consider the optimization problem of minimizing an objective functional, which admits a variational form and is defined over probability distributions on the constrained domain, which poses challenges to both theoretical analysis and…
This paper introduces two novel modifications to the Dynamic sAmpling Policy Optimization (DAPO) algorithm [1], approached from a mixed-policy perspective. Standard policy gradient methods can suffer from instability and sample…