Related papers: Successive Convex Approximation Based Off-Policy O…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have shown tremendous success in simulation environments, but their application to real-world problems faces significant challenges, with safety being a major concern. In particular, enforcing…
Incorporating safety is an essential prerequisite for broadening the practical applications of reinforcement learning in real-world scenarios. To tackle this challenge, Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are leveraged, which…
Safety exploration can be regarded as a constrained Markov decision problem where the expected long-term cost is constrained. Previous off-policy algorithms convert the constrained optimization problem into the corresponding unconstrained…
We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with an unknown cost function and employ stochastic convex optimization tools to address the problem of imitation learning, which consists of learning a policy from a finite set of…
The problem of constrained reinforcement learning (CRL) holds significant importance as it provides a framework for addressing critical safety satisfaction concerns in the field of reinforcement learning (RL). However, with the introduction…
Safety-critical learning requires policies that improve performance without leaving the safe operating regime. We study constrained policy learning where model parameters must satisfy rollout-based safety constraints that can be evaluated…
We study the safe reinforcement learning problem with nonlinear function approximation, where policy optimization is formulated as a constrained optimization problem with both the objective and the constraint being nonconvex functions. For…
Constrained reinforcement learning has achieved promising progress in safety-critical fields where both rewards and constraints are considered. However, constrained reinforcement learning methods face challenges in striking the right…
For many applications of reinforcement learning it can be more convenient to specify both a reward function and constraints, rather than trying to design behavior through the reward function. For example, systems that physically interact…
In this work, we focus on the problem of safe policy transfer in reinforcement learning: we seek to leverage existing policies when learning a new task with specified constraints. This problem is important for safety-critical applications…
We consider stochastic optimization problems with non-convex functional constraints, such as those arising in trajectory generation, sparse approximation, and robust classification. To this end, we put forth a recursive momentum-based…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) for constrained MDPs (CMDPs) is an increasingly important problem for various applications. Often, the average criterion is more suitable than the discounted criterion. Yet, RL for average-CMDPs (ACMDPs) remains…
This thesis develops theoretical frameworks and algorithms that advance constrained reinforcement learning (RL) across control, preference learning, and alignment of large language models. The first contribution addresses constrained Markov…
We study continuous action reinforcement learning problems in which it is crucial that the agent interacts with the environment only through safe policies, i.e.,~policies that do not take the agent to undesirable situations. We formulate…
Discrete optimization belongs to the set of $\mathcal{NP}$-hard problems, spanning fields such as mixed-integer programming and combinatorial optimization. A current standard approach to solving convex discrete optimization problems is the…
This work studies reinforcement learning (RL) in the context of multi-period supply chains subject to constraints, e.g., on production and inventory. We introduce Distributional Constrained Policy Optimization (DCPO), a novel approach for…
This paper proposes a new family of algorithms for training neural networks (NNs). These are based on recent developments in the field of non-convex optimization, going under the general name of successive convex approximation (SCA)…
We consider a smoothed online convex optimization (SOCO) problem with predictions, where the learner has access to a finite lookahead window of time-varying stage costs, but suffers a switching cost for changing its actions at each stage.…
Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) is a natural framework for reinforcement learning tasks with safety constraints, where agents learn a policy that maximizes the long-term reward while satisfying the constraints on the long-term…
Although Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have found tremendous success in simulated domains, they often cannot directly be applied to physical systems, especially in cases where there are hard constraints to satisfy (e.g. on safety…