English
Related papers

Related papers: On Credit Assignment in Hierarchical Reinforcement…

200 papers

Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) holds great potential for sample-efficient learning on challenging long-horizon tasks. In particular, letting a higher level assign subgoals to a lower level has been shown to enable fast learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-07 Nico Gürtler , Dieter Büchler , Georg Martius

We study how to effectively leverage expert feedback to learn sequential decision-making policies. We focus on problems with sparse rewards and long time horizons, which typically pose significant challenges in reinforcement learning. We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-06-12 Hoang M. Le , Nan Jiang , Alekh Agarwal , Miroslav Dudík , Yisong Yue , Hal Daumé

We propose a novel hierarchical reinforcement learning framework for quadruped locomotion over challenging terrain. Our approach incorporates a two-layer hierarchy in which a high-level policy (HLP) selects optimal goals for a low-level…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-06-26 Jeremiah Coholich , Muhammad Ali Murtaza , Seth Hutchinson , Zsolt Kira

Developing an automated driving system capable of navigating complex traffic environments remains a formidable challenge. Unlike rule-based or supervised learning-based methods, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) based controllers eliminate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-28 Zhihao Zhang , Ekim Yurtsever , Keith A. Redmill

We introduce Hierarchical Transformers for Meta-Reinforcement Learning (HTrMRL), a powerful online meta-reinforcement learning approach. HTrMRL aims to address the challenge of enabling reinforcement learning agents to perform effectively…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-12 Gresa Shala , André Biedenkapp , Josif Grabocka

Multi-band operation in wireless networks can improve data rates by leveraging the benefits of propagation in different frequency ranges. Distinctive beam management procedures in different bands complicate band assignment because they…

Signal Processing · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-08-28 Dohyun Kim , Miguel R. Castellanos , Robert W. Heath

In this work, we explore the use of hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) for the task of temporal sequence prediction. Using a combination of deep learning and HRL, we develop a stock agent to predict temporal price sequences from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Faith Johnson , Kristin Dana

Hierarchical agents have the potential to solve sequential decision making tasks with greater sample efficiency than their non-hierarchical counterparts because hierarchical agents can break down tasks into sets of subtasks that only…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-09-05 Andrew Levy , George Konidaris , Robert Platt , Kate Saenko

Real-world tasks are often highly structured. Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) has attracted research interest as an approach for leveraging the hierarchical structure of a given task in reinforcement learning (RL). However,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-03-08 Takayuki Osa , Voot Tangkaratt , Masashi Sugiyama

Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) solves complex tasks that require coordination from multiple agents, but is often limited to either local (independent learning) or global (centralized learning) perspectives. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-26 David Eckel , Henri Meeß

Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) addresses complex long-horizon tasks by skillfully decomposing them into subgoals. Therefore, the effectiveness of HRL is greatly influenced by subgoal reachability. Typical HRL methods only…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-27 Yu Luo , Fuchun Sun , Tianying Ji , Xianyuan Zhan

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) enhances the scalability of decision-making in long-horizon tasks by introducing temporal abstraction through options-policies that span multiple timesteps. Despite its theoretical appeal, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-30 Hemanath Arumugam , Falong Fan , Bo Liu

Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) effectively improves agents' exploration efficiency on tasks with sparse reward, with the guide of high-quality hierarchical structures (e.g., subgoals or options). However, how to automatically…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-14 Shaohui Peng , Xing Hu , Rui Zhang , Ke Tang , Jiaming Guo , Qi Yi , Ruizhi Chen , Xishan Zhang , Zidong Du , Ling Li , Qi Guo , Yunji Chen

Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) proposes to solve difficult tasks by performing decision-making and control at successively higher levels of temporal abstraction. However, off-policy HRL often suffers from the problem of a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-14 Vivienne Huiling Wang , Joni Pajarinen , Tinghuai Wang , Joni-Kristian Kämäräinen

Developing agents capable of exploring, planning and learning in complex open-ended environments is a grand challenge in artificial intelligence (AI). Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) offers a promising solution to this challenge…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-06-18 Martin Klissarov , Akhil Bagaria , Ziyan Luo , George Konidaris , Doina Precup , Marlos C. Machado

Hierarchical model-based reinforcement learning (HMBRL) aims to combine the benefits of better sample efficiency of model based reinforcement learning (MBRL) with the abstraction capability of hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Robin Schiewer , Anand Subramoney , Laurenz Wiskott

The ability to transfer knowledge to novel environments and tasks is a sensible desiderata for general learning agents. Despite the apparent promises, transfer in RL is still an open and little exploited research area. In this paper, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-13 Johan Ferret , Raphaël Marinier , Matthieu Geist , Olivier Pietquin

The options framework in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning breaks down overall goals into a combination of options or simpler tasks and associated policies, allowing for abstraction in the action space. Ideally, these options can be…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-14 Kushal Chauhan , Soumya Chatterjee , Akash Reddy , Balaraman Ravindran , Pradeep Shenoy

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) is a promising approach for managing task complexity across multiple levels of abstraction and accelerating long-horizon agent exploration. However, the effectiveness of hierarchical policies…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-24 Xianghua Zeng , Hao Peng , Dingli Su , Angsheng Li

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