Related papers: Finite-Time Analysis of Asynchronous Stochastic Ap…
We present the convergence rates of synchronous and asynchronous Q-learning for average-reward Markov decision processes, where the absence of contraction poses a fundamental challenge. Existing non-asymptotic results overcome this…
Q-learning with neural network function approximation (neural Q-learning for short) is among the most prevalent deep reinforcement learning algorithms. Despite its empirical success, the non-asymptotic convergence rate of neural Q-learning…
This paper establishes the first almost sure convergence rate and the first maximal concentration bound with exponential tails for general contractive stochastic approximation algorithms with Markovian noise. As a corollary, we also obtain…
This paper develops an unified framework to study finite-sample convergence guarantees of a large class of value-based asynchronous reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. We do this by first reformulating the RL algorithms as…
We come up with a class of distributed quantized averaging algorithms on asynchronous communication networks with fixed, switching and random topologies. The implementation of these algorithms is subject to the realistic constraint that the…
In this paper, we present a control synthesis framework for a general class of nonlinear, control-affine systems under spatiotemporal and input constraints. First, we study the problem of fixed-time convergence in the presence of input…
Stochastic approximation is a powerful class of algorithms with celebrated success. However, a large body of previous analysis focuses on stochastic approximations driven by contractive operators, which is not applicable in some important…
We developed a corporative stochastic approximation (CSA) type algorithm for semi-infinite programming (SIP), where the cut generation problem is solved inexactly. First, we provide general error bounds for inexact CSA. Then, we propose two…
Q-learning is widely used algorithm in reinforcement learning community. Under the lookup table setting, its convergence is well established. However, its behavior is known to be unstable with the linear function approximation case. This…
Federated learning enables training on a massive number of edge devices. To improve flexibility and scalability, we propose a new asynchronous federated optimization algorithm. We prove that the proposed approach has near-linear convergence…
Stability issues with reinforcement learning methods persist. To better understand some of these stability and convergence issues involving deep reinforcement learning methods, we examine a simple linear quadratic example. We interpret the…
Stochastic Approximation (SA) is a widely used algorithmic approach in various fields, including optimization and reinforcement learning (RL). Among RL algorithms, Q-learning is particularly popular due to its empirical success. In this…
This paper proposes a new family of algorithms for training neural networks (NNs). These are based on recent developments in the field of non-convex optimization, going under the general name of successive convex approximation (SCA)…
This paper concerns quasi-stochastic approximation (QSA) to solve root finding problems commonly found in applications to optimization and reinforcement learning. The general constant gain algorithm may be expressed as the…
We study the problem of learning the optimal policy in a discounted, infinite-horizon reinforcement learning (RL) setting in the presence of adversarially corrupted rewards. To address this problem, we develop a novel robust variant of the…
This paper is concerned with the linear quadratic optimal control of discrete-time time-varying system with terminal state constraint. The main contribution is to propose a Q-learning algorithm for the optimal controller when the…
Stochastic Approximation (SA) is a classical algorithm that has had since the early days a huge impact on signal processing, and nowadays on machine learning, due to the necessity to deal with a large amount of data observed with…
The paper introduces the first formulation of convex Q-learning for Markov decision processes with function approximation. The algorithms and theory rest on a relaxation of a dual of Manne's celebrated linear programming characterization of…
We study the convergence of $Q$-learning with linear function approximation. Our key contribution is the introduction of a novel multi-Bellman operator that extends the traditional Bellman operator. By exploring the properties of this…
This paper studies the performative prediction problem which optimizes a stochastic loss function with data distribution that depends on the decision variable. We consider a setting where the agent(s) provides samples adapted to the…