Related papers: Policy Optimization for Constrained MDPs with Prov…
Online safe reinforcement learning (RL) plays a key role in dynamic environments, with applications in autonomous driving, robotics, and cybersecurity. The objective is to learn optimal policies that maximize rewards while satisfying safety…
Mirror descent (MD) is a powerful first-order optimization technique that subsumes several optimization algorithms including gradient descent (GD). In this work, we develop a semi-definite programming (SDP) framework to analyze the…
Policy mirror descent (PMD) is a general policy optimization framework in reinforcement learning, which can cover a wide range of typical policy optimization methods by specifying different mirror maps. Existing analysis of PMD requires…
This paper focuses on learning a Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) via general parameterized policies. We propose a Primal-Dual based Regularized Accelerated Natural Policy Gradient (PDR-ANPG) algorithm that uses entropy and…
We present the first finite time global convergence analysis of policy gradient in the context of infinite horizon average reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). Specifically, we focus on ergodic tabular MDPs with finite state and action…
We study policy optimization in an infinite horizon, $\gamma$-discounted constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). Our objective is to return a policy that achieves large expected reward with a small constraint violation. We consider the…
Mirror descent (MD), a well-known first-order method in constrained convex optimization, has recently been shown as an important tool to analyze trust-region algorithms in reinforcement learning (RL). However, there remains a considerable…
We present new policy mirror descent (PMD) methods for solving reinforcement learning (RL) problems with either strongly convex or general convex regularizers. By exploring the structural properties of these overall highly nonconvex…
We study the policy testing problem in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the fixed-confidence setting under a generative model with static sampling. The goal is to decide whether the value of a given policy exceeds a specified…
This paper explores the realm of infinite horizon average reward Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs). To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to delve into the regret and constraint violation analysis of average…
Robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) provide a promising framework for computing reliable policies in the face of model errors. Many successful reinforcement learning algorithms build on variations of policy-gradient methods, but…
We consider a dynamic programming (DP) approach to approximately solving an infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) problem with a fixed initial-state for the expected total discounted-reward criterion with a…
Constrained decision-making is essential for designing safe policies in real-world control systems, yet simulated environments often fail to capture real-world adversities. We consider the problem of learning a policy that will maximize the…
In this paper, we present a new policy gradient (PG) methods, namely the block policy mirror descent (BPMD) method for solving a class of regularized reinforcement learning (RL) problems with (strongly)-convex regularizers. Compared to the…
We study entropy-regularized constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the soft-max parameterization, in which an agent aims to maximize the entropy-regularized value function while satisfying constraints on the expected total…
We consider a discounted cost constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) policy optimization problem, in which an agent seeks to maximize a discounted cumulative reward subject to a number of constraints on discounted cumulative utilities.…
Natural policy gradient (NPG) is a common policy optimization algorithm and can be viewed as mirror ascent in the space of probabilities. Recently, Vaswani et al. [2021] introduced a policy gradient method that corresponds to mirror ascent…
Policy Mirror Descent (PMD) is a popular framework in reinforcement learning, serving as a unifying perspective that encompasses numerous algorithms. These algorithms are derived through the selection of a mirror map and enjoy finite-time…
Policy mirror descent (PMD) provides a principled framework for reinforcement learning (RL) by iteratively solving KL-regularized policy improvement subproblems. While this approach has been adopted in training advanced LLMs such as Kimi…
The constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) framework emerges as an important reinforcement learning approach for imposing safety or other critical objectives while maximizing cumulative reward. However, the current understanding of how…