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In this paper, we focus on the problem of robustifying reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms with respect to model uncertainties. Indeed, in the framework of model-based RL, we propose to merge the theory of constrained Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-13 Reazul Hasan Russel , Mouhacine Benosman , Jeroen Van Baar

We introduce distributional dynamic programming (DP) methods for optimizing statistical functionals of the return distribution, with standard reinforcement learning as a special case. Previous distributional DP methods could optimize the…

We study off-dynamics Reinforcement Learning (RL), where the policy is trained on a source domain and deployed to a distinct target domain. We aim to solve this problem via online distributionally robust Markov decision processes (DRMDPs),…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-26 Zhishuai Liu , Pan Xu

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has gained substantial attention across diverse application domains and theoretical investigations. Existing literature on RL theory largely focuses on risk-neutral settings where the decision-maker learns to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-24 Zhengqi Wu , Renyuan Xu

Classical reinforcement learning (RL) techniques are generally concerned with the design of decision-making policies driven by the maximisation of the expected outcome. Nevertheless, this approach does not take into consideration the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-02 Thibaut Théate , Damien Ernst

One major obstacle that precludes the success of reinforcement learning in real-world applications is the lack of robustness, either to model uncertainties or external disturbances, of the trained policies. Robustness is critical when the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-05 Rahul Singh , Qinsheng Zhang , Yongxin Chen

We introduce a distributional method for learning the optimal policy in risk averse Markov decision process with finite state action spaces, latent costs, and stationary dynamics. We assume sequential observations of states, actions, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-01 Ziteng Cheng , Sebastian Jaimungal , Nick Martin

Reinforcement learning (RL) allows an agent interacting sequentially with an environment to maximize its long-term expected return. In the distributional RL (DistrRL) paradigm, the agent goes beyond the limit of the expected value, to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-01 Mastane Achab , Reda Alami , Yasser Abdelaziz Dahou Djilali , Kirill Fedyanin , Eric Moulines

Distributional reinforcement learning (DRL) enhances the understanding of the effects of the randomness in the environment by letting agents learn the distribution of a random return, rather than its expected value as in standard…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-26 Zifan Wang , Yulong Gao , Siyi Wang , Michael M. Zavlanos , Alessandro Abate , Karl H. Johansson

In real scenarios, state observations that an agent observes may contain measurement errors or adversarial noises, misleading the agent to take suboptimal actions or even collapse while training. In this paper, we study the training…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-23 Ke Sun , Yingnan Zhao , Shangling Jui , Linglong Kong

In many real-world scenarios, Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms are trained on data with dynamics shift, i.e., with different underlying environment dynamics. A majority of current methods address such issue by training context…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-23 Zhenghai Xue , Qingpeng Cai , Shuchang Liu , Dong Zheng , Peng Jiang , Kun Gai , Bo An

This paper targets the efficient construction of a safety shield for decision making in scenarios that incorporate uncertainty. Markov decision processes (MDPs) are prominent models to capture such planning problems. Reinforcement learning…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-11-26 Nils Jansen , Bettina Könighofer , Sebastian Junges , Alexandru C. Serban , Roderick Bloem

Reinforcement Learning algorithms are primarily focused on learning a policy that maximizes expected return. As a result, the learned policy can exploit one or few reward sources. However, in many natural situations, it is desirable to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-31 Sagalpreet Singh , Rishi Saket , Aravindan Raghuveer

What are the functionals of the reward that can be computed and optimized exactly in Markov Decision Processes?In the finite-horizon, undiscounted setting, Dynamic Programming (DP) can only handle these operations efficiently for certain…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-02-20 Alexandre Marthe , Aurélien Garivier , Claire Vernade

Meta-reinforcement learning algorithms provide a data-driven way to acquire policies that quickly adapt to many tasks with varying rewards or dynamics functions. However, learned meta-policies are often effective only on the exact task…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-13 Anurag Ajay , Abhishek Gupta , Dibya Ghosh , Sergey Levine , Pulkit Agrawal

The goal of an offline reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm is to learn optimal polices using historical (offline) data, without access to the environment for online exploration. One of the main challenges in offline RL is the distribution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Kishan Panaganti , Zaiyan Xu , Dileep Kalathil , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

Operational constraint violations may occur when deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agents interact with real-world active distribution systems to learn their optimal policies during training. This letter presents a universal…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-08-22 Hoang Tien Nguyen , Dae-Hyun Choi

Learning a predictive model of the mean return, or value function, plays a critical role in many reinforcement learning algorithms. Distributional reinforcement learning (DRL) has been shown to improve performance by modeling the value…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-08 Ju-Seung Byun , Andrew Perrault

This paper investigates model robustness in reinforcement learning (RL) to reduce the sim-to-real gap in practice. We adopt the framework of distributionally robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs), aimed at learning a policy that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Laixi Shi , Gen Li , Yuting Wei , Yuxin Chen , Matthieu Geist , Yuejie Chi

Reactive synthesis algorithms allow automatic construction of policies to control an environment modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) that are optimal with respect to high-level temporal logic specifications. However, they assume that…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2022-05-31 Rajeev Alur , Suguman Bansal , Osbert Bastani , Kishor Jothimurugan