Related papers: Finite Horizon Q-learning: Stability, Convergence,…
The use of target networks is a common practice in deep reinforcement learning for stabilizing the training; however, theoretical understanding of this technique is still limited. In this paper, we study the so-called periodic Q-learning…
The $Q$-learning algorithm is a simple and widely-used stochastic approximation scheme for reinforcement learning, but the basic protocol can exhibit instability in conjunction with function approximation. Such instability can be observed…
We investigate the challenges of applying model-free reinforcement learning algorithms, like online Q-learning, to infinite state space Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). We first introduce the notion of Local Learning Processes (LLPs),…
In Markov decision processes (MDPs), quantile risk measures such as Value-at-Risk are a standard metric for modeling RL agents' preferences for certain outcomes. This paper proposes a new Q-learning algorithm for quantile optimization in…
Q-learning is widely used algorithm in reinforcement learning community. Under the lookup table setting, its convergence is well established. However, its behavior is known to be unstable with the linear function approximation case. This…
The infinite horizon setting is widely adopted for problems of reinforcement learning (RL). These invariably result in stationary policies that are optimal. In many situations, finite horizon control problems are of interest and for such…
Stability issues with reinforcement learning methods persist. To better understand some of these stability and convergence issues involving deep reinforcement learning methods, we examine a simple linear quadratic example. We interpret the…
Reinforcement learning algorithms often require finiteness of state and action spaces in Markov decision processes (MDPs) (also called controlled Markov chains) and various efforts have been made in the literature towards the applicability…
Risk-averse total-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) offer a promising framework for modeling and solving undiscounted infinite-horizon objectives. Existing model-based algorithms for risk measures like the entropic risk measure (ERM)…
Deep Q-Learning is an important reinforcement learning algorithm, which involves training a deep neural network, called Deep Q-Network (DQN), to approximate the well-known Q-function. Although wildly successful under laboratory conditions,…
Soft Q-learning is a variation of Q-learning designed to solve entropy regularized Markov decision problems where an agent aims to maximize the entropy regularized value function. Despite its empirical success, there have been limited…
In this paper, for POMDPs, we provide the convergence of a Q learning algorithm for control policies using a finite history of past observations and control actions, and, consequentially, we establish near optimality of such limit Q…
Watkins' and Dayan's Q-learning is a model-free reinforcement learning algorithm that iteratively refines an estimate for the optimal action-value function of an MDP by stochastically "visiting" many state-ation pairs [Watkins and Dayan,…
Reinforcement learning (RL) is a classical tool to solve network control or policy optimization problems in unknown environments. The original Q-learning suffers from performance and complexity challenges across very large networks. Herein,…
Q-learning is known as one of the fundamental reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. Its convergence has been the focus of extensive research over the past several decades. Recently, a new finitetime error bound and analysis for Q-learning…
Q-learning with neural network function approximation (neural Q-learning for short) is among the most prevalent deep reinforcement learning algorithms. Despite its empirical success, the non-asymptotic convergence rate of neural Q-learning…
Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning promises, among other benefits, to efficiently capture and utilize the temporal structure of a decision-making problem and to enhance continual learning capabilities, but theoretical guarantees lag behind…
For infinite-horizon average-cost criterion problems, there exist relatively few rigorous approximation and reinforcement learning results. In this paper, for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with standard Borel spaces, (i) we first provide…
Q-learning has long been one of the most popular reinforcement learning algorithms, and theoretical analysis of Q-learning has been an active research topic for decades. Although researches on asymptotic convergence analysis of Q-learning…
Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) approaches have shown successful results in solving a large variety of complex, structured, long-horizon problems. Nevertheless, a full theoretical understanding of this empirical evidence is…