Related papers: Inferring the Optimal Policy using Markov Chain Mo…
Policy gradient methods are reinforcement learning algorithms that adapt a parameterized policy by following a performance gradient estimate. Conventional policy gradient methods use Monte-Carlo techniques to estimate the gradient, which…
Solving partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) is highly intractable in general, at least in part because the optimal policy may be infinitely large. In this paper, we explore the problem of finding the optimal policy from…
We present a model-free reinforcement learning algorithm to find an optimal policy for a finite-horizon Markov decision process while guaranteeing a desired lower bound on the probability of satisfying a signal temporal logic (STL)…
We focus on developing efficient and reliable policy optimization strategies for robot learning with real-world data. In recent years, policy gradient methods have emerged as a promising paradigm for training control policies in simulation.…
This paper presents an axiomatic approach to finite Markov decision processes where the discount rate is zero. One of the principal difficulties in the no discounting case is that, even if attention is restricted to stationary policies, a…
Efficient sampling of complex high-dimensional probability distributions is a central task in computational science. Machine learning methods like autoregressive neural networks, used with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling, provide good…
We introduce a distributional method for learning the optimal policy in risk averse Markov decision process with finite state action spaces, latent costs, and stationary dynamics. We assume sequential observations of states, actions, and…
We study the problem of learning safe control policies that are also effective; i.e., maximizing the probability of satisfying a linear temporal logic (LTL) specification of a task, and the discounted reward capturing the (classic) control…
This paper studies continuous-time stochastic control problems whose controlled states are fully non-Markovian and depend on unknown model parameters. Such problems arise naturally in path-dependent stochastic differential equations,…
The problem of synthesizing stochastic explicit model predictive control policies is known to be quickly intractable even for systems of modest complexity when using classical control-theoretic methods. To address this challenge, we present…
We consider the problem of optimally controlling stochastic, Markovian systems subject to joint chance constraints over a finite-time horizon. For such problems, standard Dynamic Programming is inapplicable due to the time correlation of…
In dynamic programming and reinforcement learning, the policy for the sequential decision making of an agent in a stochastic environment is usually determined by expressing the goal as a scalar reward function and seeking a policy that…
Markov chains are fundamental models for stochastic dynamics, with applications in a wide range of areas such as population dynamics, queueing systems, reinforcement learning, and Monte Carlo methods. Estimating the transition matrix and…
Selecting the best hyperparameters for a particular optimization instance, such as the learning rate and momentum, is an important but nonconvex problem. As a result, iterative optimization methods such as hypergradient descent lack global…
A Markov decision process can be parameterized by a transition kernel and a reward function. Both play essential roles in the study of reinforcement learning as evidenced by their presence in the Bellman equations. In our inquiry of various…
Optimal designs minimize the number of experimental runs (samples) needed to accurately estimate model parameters, resulting in algorithms that, for instance, efficiently minimize parameter estimate variance. Governed by knowledge of past…
We consider policy gradient methods for stochastic optimal control problem in continuous time. In particular, we analyze the gradient flow for the control, viewed as a continuous time limit of the policy gradient method. We prove the global…
In this paper we consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for uncontrolled restless bandit problems. In an uncontrolled restless bandit problem, there is a finite set of arms, each of which when pulled yields a positive reward.…
We study reinforcement learning for the optimal control of Branching Markov Decision Processes (BMDPs), a natural extension of (multitype) Branching Markov Chains (BMCs). The state of a (discrete-time) BMCs is a collection of entities of…
Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) addresses the problem of recovering a task description given a demonstration of the optimal policy used to solve such a task. The optimal policy is usually provided by an expert or teacher, making IRL…