Related papers: Convex Optimization for Parameter Synthesis in MDP…

We study planning problems where autonomous agents operate inside environments that are subject to uncertainties and not fully observable. Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are a natural formal model to capture such…

Sequential Convex Programming (SCP) has recently gained popularity as a tool for trajectory optimization due to its sound theoretical properties and practical performance. Yet, most SCP-based methods for trajectory optimization are…

We consider a parametric convex quadratic programming, CQP, relaxation for the quadratic knapsack problem, QKP. This relaxation maintains partial quadratic information from the original QKP by perturbing the objective function to obtain a…

Contextual Markov decision processes (CMDPs) describe a class of reinforcement learning problems in which the transition kernels and reward functions can change over time with different MDPs indexed by a context variable. While CMDPs serve…

Semidefinite programming (SDP) is a powerful framework from convex optimization that has striking potential for data science applications. This paper develops a provably correct randomized algorithm for solving large, weakly constrained SDP…

In this paper we present a framework for risk-sensitive model predictive control (MPC) of linear systems affected by stochastic multiplicative uncertainty. Our key innovation is to consider a time-consistent, dynamic risk evaluation of the…

The formal verification and controller synthesis for Markov decision processes that evolve over uncountable state spaces are computationally hard and thus generally rely on the use of approximations. In this work, we consider the…

This paper addresses the problem of planning under uncertainty in large Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Factored MDPs represent a complex state space using state variables and the transition model using a dynamic Bayesian network. This…

This paper discusses a novel probabilistic approach for the design of robust model predictive control (MPC) laws for discrete-time linear systems affected by parametric uncertainty and additive disturbances. The proposed technique is based…

We consider the problem of designing policies for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) with dynamic coherent risk objectives. Synthesizing risk-averse optimal policies for POMDPs requires infinite memory and thus…

Interval Markov decision processes (IMDPs) generalise classical MDPs by having interval-valued transition probabilities. They provide a powerful modelling tool for probabilistic systems with an additional variation or uncertainty that…

In this work, we propose a new local optimization method to solve a class of nonconvex semidefinite programming (SDP) problems. The basic idea is to approximate the feasible set of the nonconvex SDP problem by inner positive semidefinite…

A novel decomposition scheme to solve parametric non-convex programs as they arise in Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) is presented. It consists of a fixed number of alternating proximal gradient steps and a dual update per time…

We introduce a QPLEX Decision Process (QDP) as a model for dynamic control of queueing systems with non-stationary arrivals, general service distributions, and service-level chance constraints. QDPs integrate QPLEX, a computational modeling…

We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a risk measure of variability in cost, under the risk-aware MDPs paradigm. Previous studies showed that risk-aware MDPs, based on a minimax approach to handling risk, can be…

Many problems in sequential decision making and stochastic control often have natural multiscale structure: sub-tasks are assembled together to accomplish complex goals. Systematically inferring and leveraging hierarchical structure,…

The goal of a traditional Markov decision process (MDP) is to maximize expected cumulative reward over a defined horizon (possibly infinite). In many applications, however, a decision maker may be interested in optimizing a specific…

Sample-efficient exploration is crucial not only for discovering rewarding experiences but also for adapting to environment changes in a task-agnostic fashion. A principled treatment of the problem of optimal input synthesis for system…

Markov decision process over vector addition system with states (VASS MDP) is a finite state model combining non-deterministic and probabilistic behavior, augmented with non-negative integer counters that can be incremented or decremented…

Given a Markov decision process (MDP) and a linear-time ($\omega$-regular or LTL) specification, the controller synthesis problem aims to compute the optimal policy that satisfies the specification. More recently, problems that reason over…