English
Related papers

Related papers: Markov Decision Processes under Model Uncertainty

200 papers

Model-based reinforcement learning has the potential to be more sample efficient than model-free approaches. However, existing model-based methods are vulnerable to model bias, which leads to poor generalization and asymptotic performance…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-27 Tung-Long Vuong , Kenneth Tran

This paper proposes a novel approach to construct data-driven online solutions to optimization problems (P) subject to a class of distributionally uncertain dynamical systems. The introduced framework allows for the simultaneous learning of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-23 Dan Li , Dariush Fooladivanda , Sonia Martinez

In classic robust optimization, it is assumed that a set of possible parameter realizations, the uncertainty set, is modeled in a previous step and part of the input. As recent work has shown, finding the most suitable uncertainty set is in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-10-18 André Chassein , Marc Goerigk

This paper investigates methods for estimating the optimal stochastic control policy for a Markov Decision Process with unknown transition dynamics and an unknown reward function. This form of model-free reinforcement learning comprises…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-06 Brandon Trabucco , Albert Qu , Simon Li , Ganeshkumar Ashokavardhanan

We consider decision-making problems under decision-dependent uncertainty (DDU), where the distribution of uncertain parameters depends on the decision variables and is only observable through a finite offline dataset. To address this…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-08-12 Chengrui Qu , Huiwen Jia , Pengcheng You

We consider the problem of approximating the reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDP) with uncountable (continuous) state and action spaces. While there are algorithms that, for special classes of such MDP, provide a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-07-13 Kush Grover , Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer , Maximilian Weininger

This paper studies the computation of robust deterministic policies for Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) in the Lightning Does Not Strike Twice (LDST) model of Mannor, Mebel and Xu (ICML '12). In this model, designed to provide robustness…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-18 Fei Wu , Erik Demeulemeester , Jannik Matuschke

A new framework for portfolio diversification is introduced which goes beyond the classical mean-variance approach and portfolio allocation strategies such as risk parity. It is based on a novel concept called portfolio dimensionality that…

Portfolio Management · Quantitative Finance 2019-09-23 Mathias Barkhagen , Brian Fleming , Sergio Garcia Quiles , Jacek Gondzio , Joerg Kalcsics , Jens Kroeske , Sotirios Sabanis , Arne Staal

We investigate a simple approximation scheme, based on overlapping linear decision rules, for solving data-driven two-stage distributionally robust optimization problems with the type-$\infty$ Wasserstein ambiguity set. Our main result…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-11-05 Dimitris Bertsimas , Shimrit Shtern , Bradley Sturt

Motivated by many application problems, we consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a general loss function and unknown parameters. To mitigate the epistemic uncertainty associated with unknown parameters, we take a Bayesian approach…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-02 Xiaoshuang Wang , Yifan Lin , Enlu Zhou

Real-world experiments involve batched & delayed feedback, non-stationarity, multiple objectives & constraints, and (often some) personalization. Tailoring adaptive methods to address these challenges on a per-problem basis is infeasible,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-11 Ethan Che , Daniel R. Jiang , Hongseok Namkoong , Jimmy Wang

We present a new modeling paradigm for optimization that we call random field optimization. Random fields are a powerful modeling abstraction that aims to capture the behavior of random variables that live on infinite-dimensional spaces…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-01-26 Joshua L. Pulsipher , Benjamin R. Davidson , Victor M. Zavala

We consider distributionally robust optimization problems where the uncertainty is modeled via a structured Wasserstein ambiguity set. Specifically, the ambiguity is restricted to product measures $P^{\otimes N}$, where $P$ lies within a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-04-14 Andrey Kharitenko , Marta Fochesato , Anastasios Tsiamis , Niklas Schmid , John Lygeros

We propose a method for approximating solutions to optimization problems involving the global stability properties of parameter-dependent continuous-time autonomous dynamical systems. The method relies on an approximation of the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-08-12 Péter Koltai , Alexander Volf

Robust optimization typically follows a worst-case perspective, where a single scenario may determine the objective value of a given solution. Accordingly, it is a challenging task to reduce the size of an uncertainty set without changing…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-09-02 Marc Goerigk , Mohammad Khosravi

In robust optimization, the uncertainty set is used to model all possible outcomes of uncertain parameters. In the classic setting, one assumes that this set is provided by the decision maker based on the data available to her. Only…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-01-23 Trivikram Dokka , Marc Goerigk , Rahul Roy

We present a data-driven approach for producing policies that are provably robust across unknown stochastic environments. Existing approaches can learn models of a single environment as an interval Markov decision processes (IMDP) and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Yannik Schnitzer , Alessandro Abate , David Parker

Robust Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are receiving much attention in learning a robust policy which is less sensitive to environment changes. There are an increasing number of works analyzing sample-efficiency of robust MDPs. However,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-09-13 Wenhao Yang , Han Wang , Tadashi Kozuno , Scott M. Jordan , Zhihua Zhang

Dynamic optimization of mean and variance in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is a long-standing challenge caused by the failure of dynamic programming. In this paper, we propose a new approach to find the globally optimal policy for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-02-28 Li Xia , Shuai Ma

Distributionally Robust Optimisation (DRO) protects risk-averse decision-makers by considering the worst-case risk within an ambiguity set of distributions based on the empirical distribution or a model. To further guard against finite,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-05-07 Charita Dellaporta , Patrick O'Hara , Theodoros Damoulas