Related papers: MDPs with Setwise Continuous Transition Probabilit…
We give polynomial-time algorithms for computing the values of Markov decision processes (MDPs) with limsup and liminf objectives. A real-valued reward is assigned to each state, and the value of an infinite path in the MDP is the limsup…
We consider average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with Borel state spaces, countable, discrete action spaces, and strictly unbounded one-stage costs. For the minimum pair approach, we introduce a new majorization condition on the…
We study Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a countably infinite number of states. The $\limsup$ (resp. $\liminf$) threshold objective is to maximize the probability that the $\limsup$ (resp. $\liminf$) of the infinite sequence of…
We consider discrete-time Markov Decision Processes with Borel state and action spaces and universally measurable policies. For several long-run average cost criteria, we establish the following optimality results: the optimal average cost…
The deployment of autonomous systems in safety-critical environments requires control policies that guarantee satisfaction of complex control specifications. These systems are commonly modeled as nonlinear discrete-time stochastic systems.…
We present an alternative view for the study of optimal control of partially observed Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs). We first revisit the traditional (and by now standard) separated-design method of reducing the problem to fully…
Many control problems in environments that can be modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs) concern infinite-time horizon specifications. The classical aim in this context is to compute a control policy that maximizes the probability of…
Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are standard models for dynamic systems with probabilistic and nondeterministic behaviour in uncertain environments. We prove that in POMDPs with long-run average objective, the…
We consider a finite number of $N$ statistically equal agents, each moving on a finite set of states according to a continuous-time Markov Decision Process (MDP). Transition intensities of the agents and generated rewards depend not only on…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition…
Long-run average optimization problems for Markov decision processes (MDPs) require constructing policies with optimal steady-state behavior, i.e., optimal limit frequency of visits to the states. However, such policies may suffer from…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are standard models for probabilistic systems with non-deterministic behaviours. Mean payoff (or long-run average reward) provides a mathematically elegant formalism to express performance related…
We investigate the problem of synthesizing optimal control policies for Markov decision processes (MDPs) with both qualitative and quantitative objectives. Specifically, our goal is to achieve a given linear temporal logic (LTL) task with…
For a countable-state Markov decision process we introduce an embedding which produces a finite-state Markov decision process. The finite-state embedded process has the same optimal cost, and moreover, it has the same dynamics as the…
We study a class of infinite-horizon average-cost Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) whose reward and transition structures are nearly separable. For the totally separable baseline (that is, with no perturbation), we derive an explicit…
As is well known, average-cost optimality inequalities imply the existence of stationary optimal policies for Markov Decision Processes with average costs per unit time, and these inequalities hold under broad natural conditions. This paper…
Decision-making problems in uncertain or stochastic domains are often formulated as Markov decision processes (MDPs). Policy iteration (PI) is a popular algorithm for searching over policy-space, the size of which is exponential in the…
In this paper, we consider a discrete-time Markov Decision Process (MDP) on a finite state-action space with a long-run risk-sensitive criterion used as the objective function. We discuss the concept of Blackwell optimality and comment on…
This paper studies the computation of robust deterministic policies for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) in the Lightning Does Not Strike Twice (LDST) model of Mannor, Mebel and Xu (ICML '12). In this model, designed to provide robustness…
Designing control policies for large, distributed systems is challenging, especially in the context of critical, temporal logic based specifications (e.g., safety) that must be met with high probability. Compositional methods for such…