Related papers: Tropical Dynamic Programming for Lipschitz Multist…
Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) is an efficient computational tool for solving nonlinear optimal control problems. It was originally designed as a single shooting method and thus is sensitive to the initial guess supplied. This work…
Estimation of parameters is a crucial part of model development. When models are deterministic, one can minimise the fitting error; for stochastic systems one must be more careful. Broadly parameterisation methods for stochastic dynamical…
The key assumption underlying linear Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) is that the learner has access to a known feature map $\phi(x, a)$ that maps state-action pairs to $d$-dimensional vectors, and that the rewards and transitions are…
This dissertation makes three main contributions. First, We identify a new connection between policy gradient and dynamic programming in MMDPs and propose the Coordinate Ascent Dynamic Programming (CADP) algorithm to compute a Markov policy…
Train marshalling is the process of reordering the railcars of a train in such a way that the railcars with the same destination appear consecutively in the final, reassembled train. The process takes place in the shunting yard by means of…
This article introduces an algorithm for implicit High Dimensional Model Representation (HDMR) of the Bellman equation. This approximation technique reduces memory demands of the algorithm considerably. Moreover, we show that HDMR enables…
In this paper, we focus on a data-driven risk-averse multistage stochastic programming (RMSP) model considering distributional robustness. We optimize the RMSP over the worst-case distribution within an ambiguity set of probability…
The computational power of mobile robots is currently insufficient to achieve torque level whole-body Model Predictive Control (MPC) at the update rates required for complex dynamic systems such as legged robots. This problem is commonly…
We present a $1.5$-approximation for the Metric Path Traveling Salesman Problem (Path TSP). All recent improvements on Path TSP crucially exploit a structural property shown by An, Kleinberg, and Shmoys [Journal of the ACM, 2015], namely…
We consider deterministic Markov decision processes (MDPs) and apply max-plus algebra tools to approximate the value iteration algorithm by a smaller-dimensional iteration based on a representation on dictionaries of value functions. The…
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…
This paper presents a novel method of global adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) for the adaptive optimal control of nonlinear polynomial systems. The strategy consists of relaxing the problem of solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB)…
This paper tackles the data-driven approximation of unknown dynamical systems using Koopman-operator methods. Given a dictionary of functions, these methods approximate the projection of the action of the operator on the finite-dimensional…
We consider the problem of finding a control policy for a Markov Decision Process (MDP) to maximize the probability of reaching some states while avoiding some other states. This problem is motivated by applications in robotics, where such…
Learning and optimal control under robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) have received increasing attention, yet most existing theory, algorithms, and applications focus on finite-horizon or discounted models. Long-run average-reward…
Recent work on approximate linear programming (ALP) techniques for first-order Markov Decision Processes (FOMDPs) represents the value function linearly w.r.t. a set of first-order basis functions and uses linear programming techniques to…
Planning problems are hard, motion planning, for example, isPSPACE-hard. Such problems are even more difficult in the presence of uncertainty. Although, Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) provide a formal framework for such problems, finding…
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…
Differential dynamic programming (DDP) is a popular technique for solving nonlinear optimal control problems with locally quadratic approximations. However, existing DDP methods are not designed for stochastic systems with unknown…
Multiple TSP ($\mathrm{mTSP}$) is a important variant of $\mathrm{TSP}$ where a set of $k$ salesperson together visit a set of $n$ cities. The $\mathrm{mTSP}$ problem has applications to many real life applications such as vehicle routing.…