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Related papers: Temporal Difference Learning as Gradient Splitting

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Off-policy algorithms, in which a behavior policy differs from the target policy and is used to gain experience for learning, have proven to be of great practical value in reinforcement learning. However, even for simple convex problems…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-13 Rong J. B. Zhu , James M. Murray

The goal of this manuscript is to conduct a controltheoretic analysis of Temporal Difference (TD) learning algorithms. TD-learning serves as a cornerstone in the realm of reinforcement learning, offering a methodology for approximating the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-09-12 Donghwan Lee , Do Wan Kim

We investigate the statistical properties of Temporal Difference (TD) learning with Polyak-Ruppert averaging, arguably one of the most widely used algorithms in reinforcement learning, for the task of estimating the parameters of the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-25 Weichen Wu , Gen Li , Yuting Wei , Alessandro Rinaldo

In this paper, we introduce proximal gradient temporal difference learning, which provides a principled way of designing and analyzing true stochastic gradient temporal difference learning algorithms. We show how gradient TD (GTD)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-09 Bo Liu , Ian Gemp , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh , Ji Liu , Sridhar Mahadevan , Marek Petrik

We discuss the approximation of the value function for infinite-horizon discounted Markov Reward Processes (MRP) with nonlinear functions trained with the Temporal-Difference (TD) learning algorithm. We first consider this problem under a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-05 Andrea Agazzi , Jianfeng Lu

We address the problem of policy evaluation in discounted Markov decision processes, and provide instance-dependent guarantees on the $\ell_\infty$-error under a generative model. We establish both asymptotic and non-asymptotic versions of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-03-17 Koulik Khamaru , Ashwin Pananjady , Feng Ruan , Martin J. Wainwright , Michael I. Jordan

Temporal difference (TD) learning algorithms with neural network function parameterization have well-established empirical success in many practical large-scale reinforcement learning tasks. However, theoretical understanding of these…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-08 Zhifa Ke , Zaiwen Wen , Junyu Zhang

We study the finite-time behaviour of the popular temporal difference (TD) learning algorithm when combined with tail-averaging. We derive finite time bounds on the parameter error of the tail-averaged TD iterate under a step-size choice…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-20 Gandharv Patil , Prashanth L. A. , Dheeraj Nagaraj , Doina Precup

Using insight from numerical approximation of ODEs and the problem formulation and solution methodology of TD learning through a Galerkin relaxation, I propose a new class of TD learning algorithms. After applying the improved numerical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-21 Caleb Bowyer

Linear TD($\lambda$) is one of the most fundamental reinforcement learning algorithms for policy evaluation. Previously, convergence rates are typically established under the assumption of linearly independent features, which does not hold…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Zixuan Xie , Xinyu Liu , Rohan Chandra , Shangtong Zhang

Value function approximation is a crucial module for policy evaluation in reinforcement learning when the state space is large or continuous. The present paper takes a generative perspective on policy evaluation via temporal-difference (TD)…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-12-03 Qin Lu , Georgios B. Giannakis

We consider the problem of continuous-time policy evaluation. This consists in learning through observations the value function associated with an uncontrolled continuous-time stochastic dynamic and a reward function. We propose two…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-08 Ziad Kobeissi , Francis Bach

This paper is concerned with the problem of policy evaluation with linear function approximation in discounted infinite horizon Markov decision processes. We investigate the sample complexities required to guarantee a predefined estimation…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-05-03 Gen Li , Weichen Wu , Yuejie Chi , Cong Ma , Alessandro Rinaldo , Yuting Wei

In this paper, we study the Temporal Difference (TD) learning with linear value function approximation. It is well known that most TD learning algorithms are unstable with linear function approximation and off-policy learning. Recent…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2016-10-06 Dominik Meyer , Hao Shen , Klaus Diepold

Temporal distances lie at the heart of many algorithms for planning, control, and reinforcement learning that involve reaching goals, allowing one to estimate the transit time between two states. However, prior attempts to define such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-11 Vivek Myers , Chongyi Zheng , Anca Dragan , Sergey Levine , Benjamin Eysenbach

This paper investigates estimating the variance of a temporal-difference learning agent's update target. Most reinforcement learning methods use an estimate of the value function, which captures how good it is for the agent to be in a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-02-15 Craig Sherstan , Brendan Bennett , Kenny Young , Dylan R. Ashley , Adam White , Martha White , Richard S. Sutton

The analysis of Temporal Difference (TD) learning in the average-reward setting faces notable theoretical difficulties because the Bellman operator is not contractive with respect to any norm. This complicates standard analyses of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-05 Haoxing Tian , Zaiwei Chen , Ioannis Ch. Paschalidis , Alex Olshevsky

We study the policy evaluation problem in multi-agent reinforcement learning. In this problem, a group of agents works cooperatively to evaluate the value function for the global discounted accumulative reward problem, which is composed of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-06-04 Thinh T. Doan , Siva Theja Maguluri , Justin Romberg

Reinforcement learning lies at the intersection of several challenges. Many applications of interest involve extremely large state spaces, requiring function approximation to enable tractable computation. In addition, the learner has only a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-11 Andrew Jacobsen , Alan Chan

Multi-step temporal difference (TD) learning is an important approach in reinforcement learning, as it unifies one-step TD learning with Monte Carlo methods in a way where intermediate algorithms can outperform either extreme. They address…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-09-10 Kristopher De Asis , Richard S. Sutton