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Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) generalize classical MDPs that consider uncertainties in transition probabilities by defining a set of possible transition functions. An objective is a set of runs (or infinite trajectories) of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-05-08 Ali Asadi , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Ehsan Kafshdar Goharshady , Mehrdad Karrabi , Ali Shafiee

We study robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) with general policy parameterization under s-rectangular and non-rectangular uncertainty sets. Prior work is largely limited to tabular policies, and hence either lacks sample complexity…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Anirudh Satheesh , Ziyi Chen , Furong Huang , Heng Huang

Reinforcement Learning is a powerful framework for training agents to navigate different situations, but it is susceptible to changes in environmental dynamics. However, solving Markov Decision Processes that are robust to changes is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-21 Etash Kumar Guha

Markov decision process (MDP) is a decision making framework where a decision maker is interested in maximizing the expected discounted value of a stream of rewards received at future stages at various states which are visited according to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-12-19 Hoang Nam Nguyen , Abdel Lisser , Vikas Vikram Singh

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a mathematical framework for modeling sequential decision making under uncertainty. The classical approaches for solving MDPs are well known and have been widely studied, some of which rely on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-05-18 Joshua R. Bertram , Xuxi Yang , Peng Wei

We present a general framework for applying machine-learning algorithms to the verification of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The primary goal of these techniques is to improve performance by avoiding an exhaustive exploration of the…

We propose policy gradient algorithms for robust infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs) with non-rectangular uncertainty sets, thereby addressing an open challenge in the robust MDP literature. Indeed, uncertainty sets that…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-30 Mengmeng Li , Daniel Kuhn , Tobias Sutter

Robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) provide a promising framework for computing reliable policies in the face of model errors. Many successful reinforcement learning algorithms build on variations of policy-gradient methods, but…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-15 Qiuhao Wang , Chin Pang Ho , Marek Petrik

We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with unknown disturbance distribution and address this problem using the robust Markov decision process (RMDP) approach. We construct the empirical distribution of the unknown disturbance…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-11 Sivaramakrishnan Ramani

We consider distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems, reformulated as distributionally robust feasibility (DRF) problems, with multiple expectation constraints. We propose a generic stochastic first-order meta-algorithm, where…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-05-29 Hyungki Im , Paul Grigas

The general sequential decision-making problem, which includes Markov decision processes (MDPs) and partially observable MDPs (POMDPs) as special cases, aims at maximizing a cumulative reward by making a sequence of decisions based on a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-07 Ruiquan Huang , Yingbin Liang , Jing Yang

This paper investigates model robustness in reinforcement learning (RL) to reduce the sim-to-real gap in practice. We adopt the framework of distributionally robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs), aimed at learning a policy that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Laixi Shi , Gen Li , Yuting Wei , Yuxin Chen , Matthieu Geist , Yuejie Chi

We study the offline data-driven sequential decision making problem in the framework of Markov decision process (MDP). In order to enhance the generalizability and adaptivity of the learned policy, we propose to evaluate each policy by a…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-11-11 Zhengling Qi , Peng Liao

We present a framework to address a class of sequential decision making problems. Our framework features learning the optimal control policy with robustness to noisy data, determining the unknown state and action parameters, and performing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-20 Amber Srivastava , Srinivasa M Salapaka

In this paper we investigate the tractability of robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) under various structural assumptions on the uncertainty set. Surprisingly, we show that in all generality (i.e. without any assumption on the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-14 Julien Grand-Clément , Nian Si , Shengbo Wang

This work proposes a framework, embedded within the Performance Estimation framework (PEP), for obtaining worst-case performance guarantees on stochastic first-order methods. Given a first-order method, a function class, and a noise model…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-05 Anne Rubbens , Sébastien Colla , Julien M. Hendrickx

In this paper we present a review of the connections between classical algorithms for solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and classical gradient-based algorithms in convex optimization. Some of these connections date as far back as the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-29 Julien Grand-Clément

We propose a distributionally robust return-risk model for Markov decision processes (MDPs) under risk and reward ambiguity. The proposed model optimizes the weighted average of mean and percentile performances, and it covers the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-05 Haolin Ruan , Zhi Chen , Chin Pang Ho

We study robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) with non-rectangular uncertainty sets, which capture interdependencies across states unlike traditional rectangular models. While non-rectangular robust policy evaluation is generally…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-02-14 Navdeep Kumar , Adarsh Gupta , Maxence Mohamed Elfatihi , Giorgia Ramponi , Kfir Yehuda Levy , Shie Mannor

We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) in which the transition probabilities and rewards belong to an uncertainty set parametrized by a collection of random variables. The probability distributions for these random parameters are…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2020-02-26 Murat Cubuktepe , Nils Jansen , Sebastian Junges , Joost-Pieter Katoen , Ufuk Topcu