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Sparse neural networks are a key factor in developing resource-efficient machine learning applications. We propose the novel and powerful sparse learning method Adaptive Regularized Training (ART) to compress dense into sparse networks.…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2023-08-17 Patrick Glandorf , Timo Kaiser , Bodo Rosenhahn

Model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) is sample-efficient but struggles in sparse reward settings. A critical bottleneck arises from the lack of informative gradients in sparse settings, where standard reward models often yield flat…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Yao-Hui Li , Zeyu Wang , Xin Li , Wei Pang , Yingfang Yuan , Zhengkun Chen , Boya Zhang , Riashat Islam , Alex Lamb , Yonggang Zhang

We introduce Self-supervised Online Reward Shaping (SORS), which aims to improve the sample efficiency of any RL algorithm in sparse-reward environments by automatically densifying rewards. The proposed framework alternates between…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-27 Farzan Memarian , Wonjoon Goo , Rudolf Lioutikov , Scott Niekum , Ufuk Topcu

To integrate into human-centered environments, autonomous agents must learn from and adapt to humans in their native settings. Preference-based reinforcement learning (PbRL) can enable this by learning reward functions from human…

Deep reinforcement learning in partially observable environments is a difficult task in itself, and can be further complicated by a sparse reward signal. Most tasks involving navigation in three-dimensional environments provide the agent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-17 Matvey Gerasyov , Ilya Makarov

Dealing with environments with sparse rewards has always been crucial for systems developed to operate in autonomous open-ended learning settings. Intrinsic Motivations could be an effective way to help Deep Reinforcement Learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-07 Gianluca Maselli , Vieri Giuliano Santucci

Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents require the specification of a reward signal for learning behaviours. However, introduction of corrupt or stochastic rewards can yield high variance in learning. Such corruption may be a direct result of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-11-09 Joshua Romoff , Peter Henderson , Alexandre Piché , Vincent Francois-Lavet , Joelle Pineau

Toddlers evolve from free exploration with sparse feedback to exploiting prior experiences for goal-directed learning with denser rewards. Drawing inspiration from this Toddler-Inspired Reward Transition, we set out to explore the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-19 Junseok Park , Yoonsung Kim , Hee Bin Yoo , Min Whoo Lee , Kibeom Kim , Won-Seok Choi , Minsu Lee , Byoung-Tak Zhang

Sparse and delayed reward functions pose a significant obstacle for real-world Reinforcement Learning (RL) applications. In this work, we propose Attention-based REward Shaping (ARES), a general and robust algorithm which uses a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-19 Ian Holmes , Min Chi

Imitation learning is an effective alternative approach to learn a policy when the reward function is sparse. In this paper, we consider a challenging setting where an agent and an expert use different actions from each other. We assume…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-27 Konrad Zolna , Negar Rostamzadeh , Yoshua Bengio , Sungjin Ahn , Pedro O. Pinheiro

Mastering robotic manipulation skills through reinforcement learning (RL) typically requires the design of shaped reward functions. Recent developments in this area have demonstrated that using sparse rewards, i.e. rewarding the agent only…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-12 Ozsel Kilinc , Giovanni Montana

Existing robotic foundation policies are trained primarily via large-scale imitation learning. While such models demonstrate strong capabilities, they often struggle with long-horizon tasks due to distribution shift and error accumulation.…

While using shaped rewards can be beneficial when solving sparse reward tasks, their successful application often requires careful engineering and is problem specific. For instance, in tasks where the agent must achieve some goal state,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Alexander Trott , Stephan Zheng , Caiming Xiong , Richard Socher

Our goal is to accurately and efficiently learn reward functions for autonomous robots. Current approaches to this problem include inverse reinforcement learning (IRL), which uses expert demonstrations, and preference-based learning, which…

Robotics · Computer Science 2019-06-24 Malayandi Palan , Nicholas C. Landolfi , Gleb Shevchuk , Dorsa Sadigh

Reinforcement learning (RL) has recently proven great success in various domains. Yet, the design of the reward function requires detailed domain expertise and tedious fine-tuning to ensure that agents are able to learn the desired…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-06 Murad Dawood , Nils Dengler , Jorge de Heuvel , Maren Bennewitz

Transfer of recent advances in deep reinforcement learning to real-world applications is hindered by high data demands and thus low efficiency and scalability. Through independent improvements of components such as replay buffers or more…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-28 André Eberhard , Houssam Metni , Georg Fahland , Alexander Stroh , Pascal Friederich

Designing reward functions is a longstanding challenge in reinforcement learning (RL); it requires specialized knowledge or domain data, leading to high costs for development. To address this, we introduce Text2Reward, a data-free framework…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-28 Tianbao Xie , Siheng Zhao , Chen Henry Wu , Yitao Liu , Qian Luo , Victor Zhong , Yanchao Yang , Tao Yu

In recent years, a variety of tasks have been accomplished by deep reinforcement learning (DRL). However, when applying DRL to tasks in a real-world environment, designing an appropriate reward is difficult. Rewards obtained via actual…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-04 Kanata Suzuki , Tetsuya Ogata

Recent GRPO-based approaches built on flow matching models have shown remarkable improvements in human preference alignment for text-to-image generation. Nevertheless, they still suffer from the sparse reward problem: the terminal reward of…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2026-02-26 Haoyou Deng , Keyu Yan , Chaojie Mao , Xiang Wang , Yu Liu , Changxin Gao , Nong Sang

Teaching agents to follow complex written instructions has been an important yet elusive goal. One technique for enhancing learning efficiency is language reward shaping (LRS). Within a reinforcement learning (RL) framework, LRS involves…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-08-21 Sukai Huang , Nir Lipovetzky , Trevor Cohn