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Reinforcement learning (RL) has been successfully applied to solve the problem of finding obstacle-free paths for autonomous agents operating in stochastic and uncertain environments. However, when the underlying stochastic dynamics of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-29 Sheryl Paul , Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh

Although deep reinforcement learning methods can learn effective policies for challenging problems such as Atari games and robotics tasks, algorithms are complex, and training times are often long. This study investigates how Evolution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-25 Annie Wong , Jacob de Nobel , Thomas Bäck , Aske Plaat , Anna V. Kononova

Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) have been successfully used for the optimization of neural networks for policy search, but they still remain sample inefficient and underperforming in some cases compared to gradient-based reinforcement learning…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2024-05-08 Paul Templier , Emmanuel Rachelson , Antoine Cully , Dennis G. Wilson

We consider the joint design and control of discrete-time stochastic dynamical systems over a finite time horizon. We formulate the problem as a multi-step optimization problem under uncertainty seeking to identify a system design and a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-07 Adrien Bolland , Ioannis Boukas , Mathias Berger , Damien Ernst

Long-term temporal credit assignment is an important challenge in deep reinforcement learning (RL). It refers to the ability of the agent to attribute actions to consequences that may occur after a long time interval. Existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-27 Tanmay Gangwani , Yuan Zhou , Jian Peng

Alignment of Large Language Models (LLMs) typically relies on Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) with gradient-based optimizers such as Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) or Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO). While…

Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning (ERL), which integrates Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) for optimization, has demonstrated remarkable performance advancements. By fusing both approaches, ERL has emerged as…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Pengyi Li , Jianye Hao , Hongyao Tang , Xian Fu , Yan Zheng , Ke Tang

Many applications in machine learning require optimizing a function whose true gradient is unknown, but where surrogate gradient information (directions that may be correlated with, but not necessarily identical to, the true gradient) is…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2019-06-12 Niru Maheswaranathan , Luke Metz , George Tucker , Dami Choi , Jascha Sohl-Dickstein

Autonomous visual navigation is an essential element in robot autonomy. Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a promising policy training paradigm. However existing RL methods suffer from high sample complexity, poor sim-to-real transfer, and…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-07-31 Qianzhong Chen , Jiankai Sun , Naixiang Gao , JunEn Low , Timothy Chen , Mac Schwager

In this work, we propose a novel approach for reinforcement learning driven by evolutionary computation. Our algorithm, dubbed as Evolutionary-Driven Reinforcement Learning (evo-RL), embeds the reinforcement learning algorithm in an…

Natural Evolution Strategies (NES) is a promising framework for black-box continuous optimization problems. NES optimizes the parameters of a probability distribution based on the estimated natural gradient, and one of the key parameters…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2022-02-08 Masahiro Nomura , Isao Ono

Training neural networks with high certified accuracy against adversarial examples remains an open challenge despite significant efforts. While certification methods can effectively leverage tight convex relaxations for bound computation,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-16 Stefan Balauca , Mark Niklas Müller , Yuhao Mao , Maximilian Baader , Marc Fischer , Martin Vechev

Reinforcement learning (RL) with sparse and deceptive rewards is challenging because non-zero rewards are rarely obtained. Hence, the gradient calculated by the agent can be stochastic and without valid information. Recent studies that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-08 Guojian Wang , Faguo Wu , Xiao Zhang , Jianxiang Liu

In response to the limitations of reinforcement learning and evolutionary algorithms (EAs) in complex problem-solving, Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning (EvoRL) has emerged as a synergistic solution. EvoRL integrates EAs and reinforcement…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2024-02-22 Yuanguo Lin , Fan Lin , Guorong Cai , Hong Chen , Lixin Zou , Pengcheng Wu

In recent years, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has emerged as a promising method for robot collision avoidance. However, such DRL models often come with limitations, such as adapting effectively to structured environments containing…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-10-27 Max Asselmeier , Zhaoyi Li , Kelin Yu , Danfei Xu

This paper introduces Evolutionary Multi-Objective Network Architecture Search (EMNAS) for the first time to optimize neural network architectures in large-scale Reinforcement Learning (RL) for Autonomous Driving (AD). EMNAS uses genetic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-11 Nihal Acharya Adde , Alexandra Gianzina , Hanno Gottschalk , Andreas Ebert

The recent advances in 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) show promising results on the novel view synthesis (NVS) task. With its superior rendering performance and high-fidelity rendering quality, 3DGS is excelling at its previous NeRF…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2024-10-30 Yu Chen , Gim Hee Lee

Evolutionary algorithms have been used to evolve a population of actors to generate diverse experiences for training reinforcement learning agents, which helps to tackle the temporal credit assignment problem and improves the exploration…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2023-04-21 Chengpeng Hu , Jiyuan Pei , Jialin Liu , Xin Yao

In this paper, we experiment with novelty-based variants of OpenAI-ES, the NS-ES and NSR-ES algorithms, and evaluate their effectiveness in training complex, transformer-based architectures designed for the problem of reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-18 Matyáš Lorenc , Roman Neruda

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is a promising approach for developing legged locomotion skills. However, the iterative design process that is inevitable in practice is poorly supported by the default methodology. It is difficult to…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-03-25 Zhaoming Xie , Patrick Clary , Jeremy Dao , Pedro Morais , Jonathan Hurst , Michiel van de Panne