Related papers: Predictor-Corrector(PC) Temporal Difference(TD) Le…
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…
We are interested in understanding stability (almost sure boundedness) of stochastic approximation algorithms (SAs) driven by a `controlled Markov' process. Analyzing this class of algorithms is important, since many reinforcement learning…
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…
The use of target networks has been a popular and key component of recent deep Q-learning algorithms for reinforcement learning, yet little is known from the theory side. In this work, we introduce a new family of target-based temporal…
Q-Learning is a fundamental off-policy reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that has the objective of approximating action-value functions in order to learn optimal policies. Nonetheless, it has difficulties in reconciling bias with…
Predicting and reasoning about the future lie at the heart of many time-series questions. For example, goal-conditioned reinforcement learning can be viewed as learning representations to predict which states are likely to be visited in the…
Temporal difference (TD) learning is a fundamental technique in reinforcement learning that updates value estimates for states or state-action pairs using a TD target. This target represents an improved estimate of the true value by…
A common optimization tool used in deep reinforcement learning is momentum, which consists in accumulating and discounting past gradients, reapplying them at each iteration. We argue that, unlike in supervised learning, momentum in Temporal…
In reinforcement learning, the TD($\lambda$) algorithm is a fundamental policy evaluation method with an efficient online implementation that is suitable for large-scale problems. One practical drawback of TD($\lambda$) is its sensitivity…
Temporal-Difference (TD) learning is a standard and very successful reinforcement learning approach, at the core of both algorithms that learn the value of a given policy, as well as algorithms which learn how to improve policies.…
We propose a unified framework to study policy evaluation (PE) and the associated temporal difference (TD) methods for reinforcement learning in continuous time and space. We show that PE is equivalent to maintaining the martingale…
Distributional reinforcement learning (DRL) has achieved empirical success in various domains. One core task in DRL is distributional policy evaluation, which involves estimating the return distribution $\eta^\pi$ for a given policy $\pi$.…
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…
Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms allow artificial agents to improve their selection of actions to increase rewarding experiences in their environments. Temporal Difference (TD) Learning -- a model-free RL method -- is a leading…
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…
The primary goal of reinforcement learning is to develop decision-making policies that prioritize optimal performance, frequently without considering safety. In contrast, safe reinforcement learning seeks to reduce or avoid unsafe behavior.…
We introduce a generalization of temporal-difference (TD) learning to networks of interrelated predictions. Rather than relating a single prediction to itself at a later time, as in conventional TD methods, a TD network relates each…
TD(0) is one of the most commonly used algorithms in reinforcement learning. Despite this, there is no existing finite sample analysis for TD(0) with function approximation, even for the linear case. Our work is the first to provide such…
In this paper, we introduce a method for adapting the step-sizes of temporal difference (TD) learning. The performance of TD methods often depends on well chosen step-sizes, yet few algorithms have been developed for setting the step-size…
In this paper, we provide a unified analysis of temporal difference learning algorithms with linear function approximators by exploiting their connections to Markov jump linear systems (MJLS). We tailor the MJLS theory developed in the…