Related papers: A Low-rank Approximation for MDPs via Moment Coupl…
We consider the problem of approximating the reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDP) with uncountable (continuous) state and action spaces. While there are algorithms that, for special classes of such MDP, provide a…
Value iteration is a well-known method of solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) that is simple to implement and boasts strong theoretical convergence guarantees. However, the computational cost of value iteration quickly becomes…
This paper studies function approximation for finite horizon discrete time Markov decision processes under certain convexity assumptions. Uniform convergence of these approximations on compact sets is proved under several sampling schemes…
Markov Decision Processes (MDP) is an useful framework to cast optimal sequential decision making problems. Given any MDP the aim is to find the optimal action selection mechanism i.e., the optimal policy. Typically, the optimal policy…
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 present a general framework for applying learning algorithms and heuristical guidance to the verification of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The primary goal of our techniques is to improve performance by avoiding an exhaustive…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are mathematical models of sequential decision-making under uncertainty that have found applications in healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and others. In these models, a decision-maker observes the state…
Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide a flexible representation for real-world decision and control problems. However, POMDPs are notoriously difficult to solve, especially when the state and observation spaces are…
This paper develops a low-nonnegative-rank approximation method to identify the state aggregation structure of a finite-state Markov chain under an assumption that the state space can be mapped into a handful of meta-states. The number of…
This paper proposes an accelerated method for approximately solving partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) problems offline. Our method carefully combines two existing tools: Anderson acceleration (AA) and the fast informed…
We propose a principled kernel-based policy iteration algorithm to solve the continuous-state Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). In contrast to most decision-theoretic planning frameworks, which assume fully known state transition models, we…
We propose a numerical method to approximate the value function for the optimal stopping problem of a piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP). Our approach is based on quantization of the post jump location---inter-arrival time Markov…
This simple note lays out a few observations which are well known in many ways but may not have been said in quite this way before. The basic idea is that when comparing two different Markov chains it is useful to couple them is such a way…
This review paper provides an introduction of Markov chains and their convergence rates which is an important and interesting mathematical topic which also has important applications for very widely used Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)…
In this paper, we consider the finite-state approximation of a discrete-time constrained Markov decision process (MDP) under the discounted and average cost criteria. Using the linear programming formulation of the constrained discounted…
We show that one can approximate the least fixed point solution for a multivariate system of monotone probabilistic max(min) polynomial equations, referred to as maxPPSs (and minPPSs, respectively), in time polynomial in both the encoding…
State aggregation is a popular model reduction method rooted in optimal control. It reduces the complexity of engineering systems by mapping the system's states into a small number of meta-states. The choice of aggregation map often depends…
Motion planning under uncertainty for an autonomous system can be formulated as a Markov Decision Process with a continuous state space. In this paper, we propose a novel solution to this decision-theoretic planning problem that directly…
In many operations management problems, we need to make decisions sequentially to minimize the cost while satisfying certain constraints. One modeling approach to study such problems is constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). When…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) with rewards are a widespread and well-studied model for systems that make both probabilistic and nondeterministic choices. A fundamental result about MDPs is that their minimal and maximal expected rewards…