Related papers: A Policy Gradient Algorithm for the Risk-Sensitive…
We consider the problem of risk-sensitive control in a reinforcement learning (RL) framework. In particular, we aim to find a risk-optimal policy by maximizing the distortion riskmetric (DRM) of the discounted reward in a finite horizon…
Constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) are used as a decision-making framework to study the long-run performance of a stochastic system. It is well-known that a stationary optimal policy of a CMDP problem under discounted cost…
In this paper, we present a methodology to deploy the deterministic policy gradient method, using actor-critic techniques, when the optimal policy is approximated using a parametric optimization problem, where safety is enforced via hard…
This paper tackles the challenge of parameter calibration in stochastic models, particularly in scenarios where the likelihood function is unavailable in an analytical form. We introduce a gradient-based simulated parameter estimation…
We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with an unknown cost function and employ stochastic convex optimization tools to address the problem of imitation learning, which consists of learning a policy from a finite set of…
We consider approximate dynamic programming for the infinite-horizon stationary $\gamma$-discounted optimal control problem formalized by Markov Decision Processes. While in the exact case it is known that there always exists an optimal…
In this paper, we propose a new lower approximation scheme for POMDP with discounted and average cost criterion. The approximating functions are determined by their values at a finite number of belief points, and can be computed efficiently…
This paper considers the problem of learning safe policies in the context of reinforcement learning (RL). In particular, we consider the notion of probabilistic safety. This is, we aim to design policies that maintain the state of the…
In this paper, we consider the risk-sensitive cost criterion with exponentiated costs for Markov decision processes and develop a model-free policy gradient algorithm in this setting. Unlike additive cost criteria such as average or…
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…
Reinforcement learning methods for robotics are increasingly successful due to the constant development of better policy gradient techniques. A precise (low variance) and accurate (low bias) gradient estimator is crucial to face…
Policy gradient methods have become a standard for training reinforcement learning agents in a scalable and efficient manner. However, they do not account for transition uncertainty, whereas learning robust policies can be computationally…
We consider the stochastic shortest path planning problem in MDPs, i.e., the problem of designing policies that ensure reaching a goal state from a given initial state with minimum accrued cost. In order to account for rare but important…
The goal of this paper is to analyze distributional Markov Decision Processes as a class of control problems in which the objective is to learn policies that steer the distribution of a cumulative reward toward a prescribed target law,…
Risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) is crucial for maintaining reliable performance in high-stakes applications. While traditional RL methods aim to learn a point estimate of the random cumulative cost, distributional RL (DRL) seeks…
During initial iterations of training in most Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms, agents perform a significant number of random exploratory steps. In the real world, this can limit the practicality of these algorithms as it can lead to…
We provide performance guarantees for a variant of simulation-based policy iteration for controlling Markov decision processes that involves the use of stochastic approximation algorithms along with state-of-the-art techniques that are…
We develop a generic policy gradient method with the global optimality guarantee for robust Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). While policy gradient methods are widely used for solving dynamic decision problems due to their scalable and…
In this paper, we consider a class of continuous-time, continuous-space stochastic optimal control problems. Building upon recent advances in Markov chain approximation methods and sampling-based algorithms for deterministic path planning,…
We design scheduling policies that minimize a risk-sensitive cost criterion for a remote estimation setup. Since risk-sensitive cost objective takes into account not just the mean value of the cost, but also higher order moments of its…