Related papers: Blackwell Online Learning for Markov Decision Proc…

We consider online learning for episodic stochastically constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), which plays a central role in ensuring the safety of reinforcement learning. Here the loss function can vary arbitrarily across the…

We consider a new form of reinforcement learning (RL) that is based on opportunities to directly learn the optimal control policy and a general Markov decision process (MDP) framework devised to support these opportunities. Derivations of…

Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) provide a rich framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty in stochastic domains. However, solving a POMDP is often intractable except for small problems due to their…

We present a new geometric interpretation of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with a natural normalization procedure that allows us to adjust the value function at each state without altering the advantage of any action with respect to any…

Interval Markov decision processes are a class of Markov models where the transition probabilities between the states belong to intervals. In this paper, we study the problem of efficient estimation of the optimal policies in Interval…

As an important framework for safe Reinforcement Learning, the Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) has been extensively studied in the recent literature. However, despite the rich results under various on-policy learning settings,…

The constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) framework emerges as an important reinforcement learning approach for imposing safety or other critical objectives while maximizing cumulative reward. However, the current understanding of how…

In this paper we design hybrid control policies for hybrid systems whose mathematical models are unknown. Our contributions are threefold. First, we propose a framework for modelling the hybrid control design problem as a single Markov…

We consider a dynamic programming (DP) approach to approximately solving an infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problem with a fixed initial-state for the expected total discounted-reward criterion with a…

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a classical tool to solve network control or policy optimization problems in unknown environments. The original Q-learning suffers from performance and complexity challenges across very large networks. Herein,…

Reinforcement learning in non-stationary environments is challenging due to abrupt and unpredictable changes in dynamics, often causing traditional algorithms to fail to converge. However, in many real-world cases, non-stationarity has some…

While learning in an unknown Markov Decision Process (MDP), an agent should trade off exploration to discover new information about the MDP, and exploitation of the current knowledge to maximize the reward. Although the agent will…

We develop a qualitative theory of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and Partially Observable MDPs that can be used to model sequential decision making tasks when only qualitative information is available. Our approach is based upon an…

Safety is a fundamental challenge in reinforcement learning (RL), particularly in real-world applications such as autonomous driving, robotics, and healthcare. To address this, Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are commonly used…

In Apprenticeship Learning (AL), we are given a Markov Decision Process (MDP) without access to the cost function. Instead, we observe trajectories sampled by an expert that acts according to some policy. The goal is to find a policy that…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) is viewed as an optimization of an objective function over certain linear operators over general function spaces. A new existence result is established for the existence of optimal policies in general MDPs,…

Stochastic and soft optimal policies resulting from entropy-regularized Markov decision processes (ER-MDP) are desirable for exploration and imitation learning applications. Motivated by the fact that such policies are sensitive with…

The goal of imitation learning is for an apprentice to learn how to behave in a stochastic environment by observing a mentor demonstrating the correct behavior. Accurate prior knowledge about the correct behavior can reduce the need for…

In this paper, we present an online reinforcement learning algorithm, called Renewal Monte Carlo (RMC), for infinite horizon Markov decision processes with a designated start state. RMC is a Monte Carlo algorithm and retains the advantages…

We study the evaluation of a policy under best- and worst-case perturbations to a Markov decision process (MDP), using transition observations from the original MDP, whether they are generated under the same or a different policy. This is…