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As representation learning becomes a powerful technique to reduce sample complexity in reinforcement learning (RL) in practice, theoretical understanding of its advantage is still limited. In this paper, we theoretically characterize the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-14 Yuan Cheng , Songtao Feng , Jing Yang , Hong Zhang , Yingbin Liang

We study the reward-free reinforcement learning framework, which is particularly suitable for batch reinforcement learning and scenarios where one needs policies for multiple reward functions. This framework has two phases. In the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-26 Zihan Zhang , Simon S. Du , Xiangyang Ji

We study the model-based reward-free reinforcement learning with linear function approximation for episodic Markov decision processes (MDPs). In this setting, the agent works in two phases. In the exploration phase, the agent interacts with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-03 Weitong Zhang , Dongruo Zhou , Quanquan Gu

Inverse reinforcement learning is the problem of inferring a reward function from an optimal policy or demonstrations by an expert. In this work, it is assumed that the reward is expressed as a reward machine whose transitions depend on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Mohamad Louai Shehab , Antoine Aspeel , Necmiye Ozay

Offline reinforcement learning (RL) struggles in environments with rich and noisy inputs, where the agent only has access to a fixed dataset without environment interactions. Past works have proposed common workarounds based on the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-01 Hongyu Zang , Xin Li , Jie Yu , Chen Liu , Riashat Islam , Remi Tachet Des Combes , Romain Laroche

In many real-world applications, reinforcement learning (RL) agents might have to solve multiple tasks, each one typically modeled via a reward function. If reward functions are expressed linearly, and the agent has previously learned a set…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-24 Lucas N. Alegre , Ana L. C. Bazzan , Bruno C. da Silva

In this work, we evaluate the effectiveness of representation learning approaches for decision making in visually complex environments. Representation learning is essential for effective reinforcement learning (RL) from high-dimensional…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-26 Jun Yamada , Karl Pertsch , Anisha Gunjal , Joseph J. Lim

Reward-free reinforcement learning (RL) considers the setting where the agent does not have access to a reward function during exploration, but must propose a near-optimal policy for an arbitrary reward function revealed only after…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-22 Andrew Wagenmaker , Yifang Chen , Max Simchowitz , Simon S. Du , Kevin Jamieson

This paper proposes a safe reinforcement learning (RL) framework based on forward-invariance-induced action-space design. The control problem is cast as a Markov decision process, but instead of relying on runtime shielding or penalty-based…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-10 Chieh Tsai , Muhammad Junayed Hasan Zahed , Salim Hariri , Hossein Rastgoftar

Model-free reinforcement learning algorithms have exhibited great potential in solving single-task sequential decision-making problems with high-dimensional observations and long horizons, but are known to be hard to generalize across…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-30 Boyuan Chen , Chuning Zhu , Pulkit Agrawal , Kaiqing Zhang , Abhishek Gupta

This paper presents an approach for accelerated learning of optimal plans for a given task represented using Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) in multi-agent systems. Given a set of options (temporally abstract actions) available to each agent,…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-10-29 Nishant Doshi

We consider the problem of learning to behave optimally in a Markov Decision Process when a reward function is not specified, but instead we have access to a set of demonstrators of varying performance. We assume the demonstrators are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-01 Pablo Samuel Castro , Shijian Li , Daqing Zhang

Reinforcement learning agents learn by encouraging behaviours which maximize their total reward, usually provided by the environment. In many environments, however, the reward is provided after a series of actions rather than each single…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-01-04 Mohammad Reza Bonyadi , Rui Wang , Maryam Ziaei

Empowerment is an information-theoretic method that can be used to intrinsically motivate learning agents. It attempts to maximize an agent's control over the environment by encouraging visiting states with a large number of reachable next…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-09 Felix Leibfried , Sergio Pascual-Diaz , Jordi Grau-Moya

A zero-shot RL agent is an agent that can solve any RL task in a given environment, instantly with no additional planning or learning, after an initial reward-free learning phase. This marks a shift from the reward-centric RL paradigm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-02 Ahmed Touati , Jérémy Rapin , Yann Ollivier

Many real-world reinforcement learning (RL) problems necessitate learning complex, temporally extended behavior that may only receive reward signal when the behavior is completed. If the reward-worthy behavior is known, it can be specified…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-10 Phillip J. K. Christoffersen , Andrew C. Li , Rodrigo Toro Icarte , Sheila A. McIlraith

Exploration is widely regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of reinforcement learning (RL), with many naive approaches succumbing to exponential sample complexity. To isolate the challenges of exploration, we propose a new…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-10 Chi Jin , Akshay Krishnamurthy , Max Simchowitz , Tiancheng Yu

Reward specification plays a central role in reinforcement learning (RL), guiding the agent's behavior. To express non-Markovian rewards, formalisms such as reward machines have been introduced to capture dependencies on histories. However,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Rajarshi Roy , Anirban Majumdar , Ritam Raha , David Parker , Marta Kwiatkowska

This paper presents a model-free reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to synthesize a control policy that maximizes the satisfaction probability of linear temporal logic (LTL) specifications. Due to the consideration of environment and…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2022-01-04 Mingyu Cai , Shaoping Xiao , Baoluo Li , Zhiliang Li , Zhen Kan

Reinforcement learning plays a crucial role in vehicle control by guiding agents to learn optimal control strategies through designing or learning appropriate reward signals. However, in vehicle control applications, rewards typically need…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-21 Jielong Yang , Daoyuan Huang