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Related papers: Practical Risk Measures in Reinforcement Learning

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We study finite episodic Markov decision processes incorporating dynamic risk measures to capture risk sensitivity. To this end, we present two model-based algorithms applied to \emph{Lipschitz} dynamic risk measures, a wide range of risk…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-06 Hao Liang , Zhi-quan Luo

Reinforcement learning (RL) has emerged as a powerful tool for tackling control problems, but its practical application is often hindered by the complexity arising from intricate reward functions with multiple terms. The reward hypothesis…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-11 Kilian Freitag , Kristian Ceder , Rita Laezza , Knut Åkesson , Morteza Haghir Chehreghani

We consider the problem of reinforcement learning under safety requirements, in which an agent is trained to complete a given task, typically formalized as the maximization of a reward signal over time, while concurrently avoiding…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-09-25 Tu-Hoa Pham , Giovanni De Magistris , Don Joven Agravante , Subhajit Chaudhury , Asim Munawar , Ryuki Tachibana

In safety-critical applications of reinforcement learning such as healthcare and robotics, it is often desirable to optimize risk-sensitive objectives that account for tail outcomes rather than expected reward. We prove the first regret…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-12 O. Bastani , Y. J. Ma , E. Shen , W. Xu

Constrained optimization provides a common framework for dealing with conflicting objectives in reinforcement learning (RL). In most of these settings, the objectives (and constraints) are expressed though the expected accumulated reward.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-03 Jane H. Lee , Baturay Saglam , Spyridon Pougkakiotis , Amin Karbasi , Dionysis Kalogerias

As reinforcement learning (RL) achieves more success in solving complex tasks, more care is needed to ensure that RL research is reproducible and that algorithms herein can be compared easily and fairly with minimal bias. RL results are,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-12 Nicolai A. Lynnerup , Laura Nolling , Rasmus Hasle , John Hallam

Aligning a lens system relative to an imager is a critical challenge in camera manufacturing. While optimal alignment can be mathematically computed under ideal conditions, real-world deviations caused by manufacturing tolerances often…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-10-06 Matthias Burkhardt , Tobias Schmähling , Pascal Stegmann , Michael Layh , Tobias Windisch

Generalization in Reinforcement Learning (RL) aims to learn an agent during training that generalizes to the target environment. This paper studies RL generalization from a theoretical aspect: how much can we expect pre-training over…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-30 Haotian Ye , Xiaoyu Chen , Liwei Wang , Simon S. Du

Machine learning (especially reinforcement learning) methods for trading are increasingly reliant on simulation for agent training and testing. Furthermore, simulation is important for validation of hand-coded trading strategies and for…

Trading and Market Microstructure · Quantitative Finance 2019-12-12 Svitlana Vyetrenko , David Byrd , Nick Petosa , Mahmoud Mahfouz , Danial Dervovic , Manuela Veloso , Tucker Hybinette Balch

In real-world decision-making problems, for instance in the fields of finance, robotics or autonomous driving, keeping uncertainty under control is as important as maximizing expected returns. Risk aversion has been addressed in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-09 Lorenzo Bisi , Luca Sabbioni , Edoardo Vittori , Matteo Papini , Marcello Restelli

Risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) is crucial for maintaining reliable performance in high-stakes applications. While traditional RL methods aim to learn a point estimate of the random cumulative cost, distributional RL (DRL) seeks…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-03 Minheng Xiao , Xian Yu , Lei Ying

Reinforcement learning (RL) and model predictive control (MPC) offer a wealth of distinct approaches for automatic decision-making under uncertainty. Given the impact both fields have had independently across numerous domains, there is…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-10-13 Nathan P. Lawrence , Philip D. Loewen , Michael G. Forbes , R. Bhushan Gopaluni , Ali Mesbah

This research delves deeply into Meta Reinforcement Learning (Meta RL) through a exploration focusing on defining generalization limits and ensuring convergence. By employing a approach this article introduces an innovative theoretical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-24 Cangqing Wang , Mingxiu Sui , Dan Sun , Zecheng Zhang , Yan Zhou

Residual Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a popular approach for adapting pretrained policies by learning a lightweight residual policy that provides corrective actions. While Residual RL is more sample-efficient than finetuning the entire…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-16 Lakshita Dodeja , Karl Schmeckpeper , Shivam Vats , Thomas Weng , Mingxi Jia , George Konidaris , Stefanie Tellex

One typical assumption in inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is that human experts act to optimize the expected utility of a stochastic cost with a fixed distribution. This assumption deviates from actual human behaviors under ambiguity.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-25 Rui Chen , Wenshuo Wang , Zirui Zhao , Ding Zhao

When simulating a complex stochastic system, the behavior of output response depends on input parameters estimated from finite real-world data, and the finiteness of data brings input uncertainty into the system. The quantification of the…

Risk Management · Quantitative Finance 2017-12-20 Helin Zhu , Tianyi Liu , Enlu Zhou

Safety is a critical feature of controller design for physical systems. When designing control policies, several approaches to guarantee this aspect of autonomy have been proposed, such as robust controllers or control barrier functions.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-26 Miguel Calvo-Fullana , Luiz F. O. Chamon , Santiago Paternain

Trustworthy verifiers are essential for the success of reinforcement learning with verifiable reward (RLVR), which is the core methodology behind various large reasoning models such as DeepSeek-R1. In complex domains like mathematical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-08 Yuzhen Huang , Weihao Zeng , Xingshan Zeng , Qi Zhu , Junxian He

Deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms can learn complex policies to optimize agent operation over time. RL algorithms have shown promising results in solving complicated problems in recent years. However, their application on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-29 Hamed Khorasgani , Haiyan Wang , Chetan Gupta , Susumu Serita

We consider the reinforcement learning (RL) problem with general utilities which consists in maximizing a function of the state-action occupancy measure. Beyond the standard cumulative reward RL setting, this problem includes as particular…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-06 Anas Barakat , Ilyas Fatkhullin , Niao He