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In typical reinforcement learning (RL), the environment is assumed given and the goal of the learning is to identify an optimal policy for the agent taking actions through its interactions with the environment. In this paper, we extend this…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-10-25 Haifeng Zhang , Jun Wang , Zhiming Zhou , Weinan Zhang , Ying Wen , Yong Yu , Wenxin Li

Deep reinforcement learning has emerged as a powerful tool for obtaining high-performance policies. However, the safety of these policies has been a long-standing issue. One promising paradigm to guarantee safety is a shield, which shields…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-06-17 Asger Horn Brorholt , Kim Guldstrand Larsen , Christian Schilling

Reinforcement learning (RL) is one of the most important branches of AI. Due to its capacity for self-adaption and decision-making in dynamic environments, reinforcement learning has been widely applied in multiple areas, such as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-03 Yunjiao Lei , Dayong Ye , Sheng Shen , Yulei Sui , Tianqing Zhu , Wanlei Zhou

Reinforcement learning is a promising approach to synthesizing policies for challenging robotics tasks. A key problem is how to ensure safety of the learned policy---e.g., that a walking robot does not fall over or that an autonomous car…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-22 Osbert Bastani

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful framework for optimal decision-making and control but often lacks provable guarantees for safety-critical applications. In this paper, we introduce a novel recovery-based shielding framework that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-18 Alexander W. Goodall , Francesco Belardinelli

Unseen shifts in environment dynamics, driven by hidden parameters such as friction or gravity, create a challenge for maintaining safety. We address this challenge by proposing Adaptive Shielding, a framework for safe reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Minjae Kwon , Tyler Ingebrand , Ufuk Topcu , Lu Feng

Autonomous systems that rely on learned perception can make unsafe decisions when sensor readings are misclassified. We study shielding for this setting: given a proposed action, a shield blocks actions that could violate safety. We…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-04-23 William Scarbro , Ravi Mangal

Most reinforcement learning (RL) approaches for the decision-making of autonomous driving consider safety as a reward instead of a cost, which makes it hard to balance the tradeoff between safety and other objectives. Human risk preference…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-03-05 Yang Li , Shijie Yuan , Yuan Chang , Xiaolong Chen , Qisong Yang , Zhiyuan Yang , Hongmao Qin

Obtaining safety guarantees for reinforcement learning is a major challenge to achieve applicability for real-world tasks. Safety shields extend standard reinforcement learning and achieve hard safety guarantees. However, existing safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-27 Jin Pin , Krasowski Hanna , Vanneaux Elena

An in-depth understanding of the particular environment is crucial in reinforcement learning (RL). To address this challenge, the decision-making process of a mobile collaborative robotic assistant modeled by the Markov decision process…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-29 Mónika Farsang , Luca Szegletes

Many physical systems have underlying safety considerations that require that the policy employed ensures the satisfaction of a set of constraints. The analytical formulation usually takes the form of a Constrained Markov Decision Process…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-03 Aria HasanzadeZonuzy , Archana Bura , Dileep Kalathil , Srinivas Shakkottai

In several reinforcement learning (RL) scenarios, mainly in security settings, there may be adversaries trying to interfere with the reward generating process. In this paper, we introduce Threatened Markov Decision Processes (TMDPs), which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-10-28 Victor Gallego , Roi Naveiro , David Rios Insua

Recent advances in reinforcement learning (RL) enable its use on increasingly complex tasks, but the lack of formal safety guarantees still limits its application in safety-critical settings. A common practical approach is to augment the RL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Donggeon David Oh , Duy P. Nguyen , Haimin Hu , Jaime F. Fisac

We consider controller synthesis for stochastic and partially unknown environments in which safety is essential. Specifically, we abstract the problem as a Markov decision process in which the expected performance is measured using a cost…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2015-10-21 Sebastian Junges , Nils Jansen , Christian Dehnert , Ufuk Topcu , Joost-Pieter Katoen

The increasing adoption of Reinforcement Learning in safety-critical systems domains such as autonomous vehicles, health, and aviation raises the need for ensuring their safety. Existing safety mechanisms such as adversarial training,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-11 Paulina Stevia Nouwou Mindom , Amin Nikanjam , Foutse Khomh , John Mullins

Reinforcement learning is a promising approach to learning control policies for performing complex multi-agent robotics tasks. However, a policy learned in simulation often fails to guarantee even simple safety properties such as obstacle…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2020-01-01 Wenbo Zhang , Osbert Bastani , Vijay Kumar

Safe reinforcement learning has been a promising approach for optimizing the policy of an agent that operates in safety-critical applications. In this paper, we propose an algorithm, SNO-MDP, that explores and optimizes Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-18 Akifumi Wachi , Yanan Sui

Many sequential decision problems involve finding a policy that maximizes total reward while obeying safety constraints. Although much recent research has focused on the development of safe reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-20 Nolan Wagener , Byron Boots , Ching-An Cheng

Solving control tasks in complex environments automatically through learning offers great potential. While contemporary techniques from deep reinforcement learning (DRL) provide effective solutions, their decision-making is not transparent.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-03 Martin Tappler , Edi Muškardin , Bernhard K. Aichernig , Bettina Könighofer

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms aim to learn optimal decisions in unknown environments through experience of taking actions and observing the rewards gained. In some cases, the environment is not influenced by the actions of the RL…