Related papers: Primal-dual regression approach for Markov decisio…
This paper develops algorithms for high-dimensional stochastic control problems based on deep learning and dynamic programming. Unlike classical approximate dynamic programming approaches, we first approximate the optimal policy by means of…
We consider finite horizon Markov decision processes under performance measures that involve both the mean and the variance of the cumulative reward. We show that either randomized or history-based policies can improve performance. We prove…
We propose and study a novel stochastic inertial primal-dual approach to solve composite optimization problems. These latter problems arise naturally when learning with penalized regularization schemes. Our analysis provide convergence…
This article develops a primal dual formulation for a primal proximal approach suitable for a large class of non-convex models in the calculus of variations. The results are established through standard tools of functional analysis, convex…
We study Concave Constrained Markov Decision Processes (Concave CMDPs) where both the objective and constraints are defined as concave functions of the state-action occupancy measure. We propose the Variance-Reduced Primal-Dual Policy…
We present metrics for measuring state similarity in Markov decision processes (MDPs) with infinitely many states, including MDPs with continuous state spaces. Such metrics provide a stable quantitative analogue of the notion of…
In this paper we propose and analyze two dual methods based on inexact gradient information and averaging that generate approximate primal solutions for smooth convex optimization problems. The complicating constraints are moved into the…
We propose an algorithm-independent framework to equip existing optimization methods with primal-dual certificates. Such certificates and corresponding rate of convergence guarantees are important for practitioners to diagnose progress, in…
We study a stochastic primal-dual method for constrained optimization over Riemannian manifolds with bounded sectional curvature. We prove non-asymptotic convergence to the optimal objective value. More precisely, for the class of…
In this paper, we study a mean-variance optimization problem in an infinite horizon discrete time discounted Markov decision process (MDP). The objective is to minimize the variance of system rewards with the constraint of mean performance.…
This paper concerns discrete-time infinite-horizon stochastic control systems with Borel state and action spaces and universally measurable policies. We study optimization problems on strategic measures induced by the policies in these…
We develop a novel primal-dual algorithm to solve a class of nonsmooth and nonlinear compositional convex minimization problems, which covers many existing and brand-new models as special cases. Our approach relies on a combination of a new…
In this note, we provide an overarching analysis of primal-dual dynamics associated to linear equality-constrained optimization problems using contraction analysis. For the well-known standard version of the problem: we establish…
We propose a doubly stochastic primal-dual coordinate optimization algorithm for empirical risk minimization, which can be formulated as a bilinear saddle-point problem. In each iteration, our method randomly samples a block of coordinates…
We consider policy evaluation in infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision problems (MDPs) with infinite spaces. We reformulate this task a compositional stochastic program with a function-valued decision variable that belongs to a…
This paper develops a distributed model predictive control (DMPC) strategy for a class of discrete-time linear systems with consideration of globally coupled constraints. The DMPC under study is based on the dual problem concerning all…
We study the minimization of a spectral risk measure of the total discounted cost generated by a Markov Decision Process (MDP) over a finite or infinite planning horizon. The MDP is assumed to have Borel state and action spaces and the cost…
Presented is a method for efficient computation of the Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) equation for time-optimal control problems using the generalized Hopf formula. Typically, numerical methods to solve the HJ equation rely on a discrete grid of the…
The curse of dimensionality is a widely known issue in reinforcement learning (RL). In the tabular setting where the state space $\mathcal{S}$ and the action space $\mathcal{A}$ are both finite, to obtain a nearly optimal policy with…
The paper addresses two variants of the stochastic shortest path problem ('optimize the accumulated weight until reaching a goal state') in Markov decision processes (MDPs) with integer weights. The first variant optimizes partial expected…