Related papers: Planning for Risk-Aversion and Expected Value in M…
We consider lexicographic bi-objective problems on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), where we optimize one objective while guaranteeing optimality of another. We propose a two-stage technique for solving such problems when the objectives…
Designing a safe policy for uncertain environments is crucial in real-world control systems. However, this challenge remains inadequately addressed within the Markov decision process (MDP) framework. This paper presents the first algorithm…
In this paper, we study safe data collection for the purpose of policy evaluation in tabular Markov decision processes (MDPs). In policy evaluation, we are given a \textit{target} policy and asked to estimate the expected cumulative reward…
While maximizing expected return is the goal in most reinforcement learning approaches, risk-sensitive objectives such as conditional value at risk (CVaR) are more suitable for many high-stakes applications. However, relatively little is…
We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…
We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with multiple limit-average (or mean-payoff) objectives. There exist two different views: (i) the expectation semantics, where the goal is to optimize the expected mean-payoff objective, and (ii)…
We propose a risk-averse statistical learning framework wherein the performance of a learning algorithm is evaluated by the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) of losses rather than the expected loss. We devise algorithms based on stochastic…
In robotic planetary surface exploration, strategic mobility planning is an important task that involves finding candidate long-distance routes on orbital maps and identifying segments with uncertain traversability. Then, expert human…
This paper addresses objectives tailored to the risk-averse optimization of accumulated rewards in Markov decision processes (MDPs). The studied objectives require maximizing the expected value of the accumulated rewards minus a penalty…
Prior work on safe Reinforcement Learning (RL) has studied risk-aversion to randomness in dynamics (aleatory) and to model uncertainty (epistemic) in isolation. We propose and analyze a new framework to jointly model the risk associated…
Robust Markov Decision Processes (RMDPs) have received significant research interest, offering an alternative to standard Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) that often assume fixed transition probabilities. RMDPs address this by optimizing…
We consider the problem of risk-sensitive motion planning in the presence of randomly moving obstacles. To this end, we adopt a model predictive control (MPC) scheme and pose the obstacle avoidance constraint in the MPC problem as a…
Financial portfolios are often optimized for maximum profit while subject to a constraint formulated in terms of the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). This amounts to solving a linear problem. However, in its original formulation this…
We study a linear-quadratic, optimal control problem on a discrete, finite time horizon with distributional ambiguity, in which the cost is assessed via Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). We take steps toward deriving a scalable dynamic…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a popular model for performance analysis and optimization of stochastic systems. The parameters of stochastic behavior of MDPs are estimates from empirical observations of a system; their values are not…
The aim of this paper is to investigate risk-averse and distributionally robust modeling of Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC) and Markov Decision Process (MDP). We discuss construction of conditional nested risk functionals, a particular…
This paper studies convergence properties of optimal values and actions for discounted and average-cost Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with weakly continuous transition probabilities and applies these properties to the stochastic…
Large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) require planning algorithms with runtime independent of the number of states of the MDP. We consider the planning problem in MDPs using linear value function approximation with only weak…
In this paper, we focus on formal synthesis of control policies for finite Markov decision processes with non-negative real-valued costs. We develop an algorithm to automatically generate a policy that guarantees the satisfaction of a…
By adopting a distributional viewpoint on law-invariant convex risk measures, we construct dynamics risk measures (DRMs) at the distributional level. We then apply these DRMs to investigate Markov decision processes, incorporating latent…