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To further understand the underlying mechanism of various reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms and also to better use the optimization theory to make further progress in RL, many researchers begin to revisit the linear-quadratic regulator…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-03-18 Man Li , Jiahu Qin , Wei Xing Zheng , Yaonan Wang , Yu Kang

Many reinforcement learning methods achieve great success in practice but lack theoretical foundation. In this paper, we study the convergence analysis on the problem of the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR). The global linear convergence…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-09 Zeyu Jin , Johann Michael Schmitt , Zaiwen Wen

We develop a model-free learning algorithm for the infinite-horizon linear quadratic regulator (LQR) problem. Specifically, (risk) constraints and structured feedback are considered, in order to reduce the state deviation while allowing for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-04-06 Kyung-bin Kwon , Lintao Ye , Vijay Gupta , Hao Zhu

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an effective approach for solving optimal control problems without knowing the exact information of the system model. However, the classical Q-learning method, a model-free RL algorithm, has its limitations,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-04 Xiushan Jiang , Weihai Zhang

We consider the continuous-time Linear-Quadratic-Regulator (LQR) problem in terms of optimizing a real-valued matrix function over the set of feedback gains. The results developed are in parallel to those in Bu et al. [1] for discrete-time…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-06-17 Jingjing Bu , Afshin Mesbahi , Mehran Mesbahi

Feedback control problems involving autonomous quadratic systems are prevalent, yet there are only a limited number of software tools available for approximating their solution due to the complexity of the problem. This paper represents a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-10-09 Jeff Borggaard , Lizette Zietsman

A promising method for constructing a data-driven output-feedback control law involves the construction of a model-free observer. The Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) optimal control policy can then be obtained by both policy-iteration (PI)…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-24 Liquan Lin , Haoyan Lin , Jie Huang

Understanding the optimization landscape of linear quadratic regulation (LQR) problems is fundamental to the design of efficient reinforcement learning solutions. Recent work has made significant progress in characterizing the landscape of…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-14 Jingliang Duan , Jie Li , Yinsong Ma , Liye Tang , Guofa Li , Liping Zhang , Shengbo Eben Li , Lin Zhao

Reinforcement learning (RL) has been successfully used to solve many continuous control tasks. Despite its impressive results however, fundamental questions regarding the sample complexity of RL on continuous problems remain open. We study…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-12-27 Stephen Tu , Benjamin Recht

We study the distributed Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control problem in discrete-time and finite-horizon, where the controller depends linearly on the history of the outputs and it is required to lie in a given subspace, e.g. to possess…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-07-14 Luca Furieri , Maryam Kamgarpour

This paper studies the linear quadratic regulation (LQR) problem of unknown discrete-time systems via dynamic output feedback learning control. In contrast to the state feedback, the optimality of the dynamic output feedback control for…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-05-29 Kedi Xie , Martin Guay , Shimin Wang , Fang Deng , Maobin Lu

Policy gradient (PG) methods are the backbone of many reinforcement learning algorithms due to their good performance in policy optimization problems. As a gradient-based approach, PG methods typically rely on knowledge of the system…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-04-02 Bowen Song , Andrea Iannelli

We propose a projection-free conditional gradient-type algorithm for smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization, where the objective function is a nested composition of $T$ functions and the constraint set is a closed convex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-11 Tesi Xiao , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi

In this paper, we investigate the infinite-horizon risk-constrained linear quadratic regulator problem (RC-QR), which augments the classical LQR formulation with a statistical constraint on the variability of the system state to incorporate…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-28 Weijian Li , Andreas A. Malikopoulos

We investigate the problem of learning linear quadratic regulators (LQR) in a multi-task, heterogeneous, and model-free setting. We characterize the stability and personalization guarantees of a policy gradient-based (PG) model-agnostic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-04 Leonardo F. Toso , Donglin Zhan , James Anderson , Han Wang

We focus on analyzing the classical stochastic projected gradient methods under a general dependent data sampling scheme for constrained smooth nonconvex optimization. We show the worst-case rate of convergence $\tilde{O}(t^{-1/4})$ and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-06-26 Ahmet Alacaoglu , Hanbaek Lyu

Policy gradient methods are a powerful family of reinforcement learning algorithms for continuous control that optimize a policy directly. However, standard first-order methods often converge slowly. Second-order methods can accelerate…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-11-05 Amirreza Valaei , Arash Bahari Kordabad , Sadegh Soudjani

In this paper, we study a class of deterministically constrained stochastic optimization problems. Existing methods typically aim to find an $\epsilon$-stochastic stationary point, where the expected violations of both constraints and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-03 Zhaosong Lu , Sanyou Mei , Yifeng Xiao

Risk-aware control, though with promise to tackle unexpected events, requires a known exact dynamical model. In this work, we propose a model-free framework to learn a risk-aware controller with a focus on the linear system. We formulate it…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2021-06-01 Feiran Zhao , Keyou You

For linear time-invariant (LTI) systems, the design of an optimal controller is a commonly encountered problem in many applications. Among all the optimization approaches available, the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) methodology certainly…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-03-29 Zilong Cheng , Jun Ma , Xiaocong Li , Masayoshi Tomizuka , Tong Heng Lee