Related papers: A Policy Gradient Algorithm for the Risk-Sensitive…
We revisit the estimation bias in policy gradients for the discounted episodic Markov decision process (MDP) from Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) perspective. The objective is formulated theoretically as the expected returns discounted…
The ability to compute reward-optimal policies for given and known finite Markov decision processes (MDPs) underpins a variety of applications across planning, controller synthesis, and verification. However, we often want policies (1) to…
In most common settings of Markov Decision Process (MDP), an agent evaluate a policy based on expectation of (discounted) sum of rewards. However in many applications this criterion might not be suitable from two perspective: first, in risk…
Rolling forecasts have been almost overlooked in the renewable energy storage literature. In this paper, we provide a new approach for handling uncertainty not just in the accuracy of a forecast, but in the evolution of forecasts over time.…
We study the sequential decision making problem of maximizing the expected total reward while satisfying a constraint on the expected total utility. We employ the natural policy gradient method to solve the discounted infinite-horizon…
In this article we consider an optimization problem where the objective function is evaluated at the fixed-point of a contraction mapping parameterized by a control variable, and optimization takes place over this control variable. Since…
We develop a new continuous-time stochastic gradient descent method for optimizing over the stationary distribution of stochastic differential equation (SDE) models. The algorithm continuously updates the SDE model's parameters using an…
The policy gradients of the expected return objective can react slowly to rare rewards. Yet, in some cases agents may wish to emphasize the low or high returns regardless of their probability. Borrowing from the economics and control…
We study discrete-time Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) on finite state-action spaces and analyze the stability of optimal policies and value functions in the long-run discounted risk-sensitive objective setting. Our analysis addresses…
We revisit the Reinforce policy gradient algorithm from the literature. Note that this algorithm typically works with cost returns obtained over random length episodes obtained from either termination upon reaching a goal state (as with…
This paper studies the approximation of optimal control policies by quantized (discretized) policies for a very general class of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The problem is motivated by applications in networked control systems,…
Using the growing volumes of vehicle trajectory data, it becomes increasingly possible to capture time-varying and uncertain travel costs in a road network, including travel time and fuel consumption. The current paradigm represents a road…
In this paper we provide faster algorithms for approximately solving discounted Markov Decision Processes in multiple parameter regimes. Given a discounted Markov Decision Process (DMDP) with $|S|$ states, $|A|$ actions, discount factor…
The policy gradient theorem (Sutton et al., 2000) prescribes the usage of a cumulative discounted state distribution under the target policy to approximate the gradient. Most algorithms based on this theorem, in practice, break this…
We consider the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: one is the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and the other is a general convex function that admits a simple proximal mapping. We assume the whole…
Models incorporating uncertain inputs, such as random forces or material parameters, have been of increasing interest in PDE-constrained optimization. In this paper, we focus on the efficient numerical minimization of a convex and smooth…
In this paper, we consider an infinite horizon average reward Markov Decision Process (MDP). Distinguishing itself from existing works within this context, our approach harnesses the power of the general policy gradient-based algorithm,…
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…
Policy gradient algorithms have been widely applied to Markov decision processes and reinforcement learning problems in recent years. Regularization with various entropy functions is often used to encourage exploration and improve…
We consider a constrained Markov Decision Problem (CMDP) where the goal of an agent is to maximize the expected discounted sum of rewards over an infinite horizon while ensuring that the expected discounted sum of costs exceeds a certain…