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In standard reinforcement learning (RL), a learning agent seeks to optimize the overall reward. However, many key aspects of a desired behavior are more naturally expressed as constraints. For instance, the designer may want to limit the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-29 Sobhan Miryoosefi , Kianté Brantley , Hal Daumé , Miroslav Dudik , Robert Schapire

Reactive synthesis algorithms allow automatic construction of policies to control an environment modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) that are optimal with respect to high-level temporal logic specifications. However, they assume that…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2022-05-31 Rajeev Alur , Suguman Bansal , Osbert Bastani , Kishor Jothimurugan

Learning and optimal control under robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) have received increasing attention, yet most existing theory, algorithms, and applications focus on finite-horizon or discounted models. Long-run average-reward…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-12 Shengbo Wang , Nian Si

We study risk-sensitive reinforcement learning in finite discounted MDPs with recursive entropic risk measures (ERM), where the risk parameter $\beta \neq 0$ controls the agent's risk attitude: $\beta>0$ for risk-averse and $\beta<0$ for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-20 Oliver Mortensen , Mohammad Sadegh Talebi

The linear Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework offers a principled foundation for reinforcement learning (RL) with strong theoretical guarantees and sample efficiency. However, its restrictive assumption-that both transition dynamics…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-03 Sinian Zhang , Kaicheng Zhang , Ziping Xu , Tianxi Cai , Doudou Zhou

Fairness plays a crucial role in various multi-agent systems (e.g., communication networks, financial markets, etc.). Many multi-agent dynamical interactions can be cast as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). While existing research has…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-02 Peizhong Ju , Arnob Ghosh , Ness B. Shroff

Despite the tremendous success of Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms in simulation environments, applying RL to real-world applications still faces many challenges. A major concern is safety, in another word, constraint satisfaction.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-04 Weiye Zhao , Tairan He , Rui Chen , Tianhao Wei , Changliu Liu

Motivated by practical applications where stable long-term performance is critical-such as robotics, operations research, and healthcare-we study the problem of distributionally robust (DR) average-reward reinforcement learning. We propose…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Zijun Chen , Shengbo Wang , Nian Si

Given a set of trajectories demonstrating the execution of a task safely in a constrained MDP with observable rewards but with unknown constraints and non-observable costs, we aim to find a policy that maximizes the likelihood of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-02 George Papadopoulos , George A. Vouros

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

While most approaches to the problem of Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) focus on estimating a reward function that best explains an expert agent's policy or demonstrated behavior on a control task, it is often the case that such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-01 Dexter R. R. Scobee , S. Shankar Sastry

Reinforcement learning (RL) approaches based on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are predominantly applied in the robot joint space, often relying on limited task-specific information and partial awareness of the 3D environment. In…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-09 Bingkun Huang , Yuhe Gong , Zewen Yang , Tianyu Ren , Luis Figueredo

Safe reinforcement learning (RL) aims to learn policies that satisfy certain constraints before deploying them to safety-critical applications. Previous primal-dual style approaches suffer from instability issues and lack optimality…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-20 Zuxin Liu , Zhepeng Cen , Vladislav Isenbaev , Wei Liu , Zhiwei Steven Wu , Bo Li , Ding Zhao

We present a mean-variance policy iteration (MVPI) framework for risk-averse control in a discounted infinite horizon MDP optimizing the variance of a per-step reward random variable. MVPI enjoys great flexibility in that any policy…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-08 Shangtong Zhang , Bo Liu , Shimon Whiteson

Robust reinforcement learning (RRL) aims at seeking a robust policy to optimize the worst case performance over an uncertainty set of Markov decision processes (MDPs). This set contains some perturbed MDPs from a nominal MDP (N-MDP) that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-21 Ukjo Hwang , Songnam Hong

In real-world scenarios, risk-averse learning is valuable for mitigating potential adverse outcomes. However, the delayed feedback makes it challenging to assess and manage risk effectively. In this paper, we investigate risk-averse…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-06 Siyi Wang , Zifan Wang , Karl Henrik Johansson , Sandra Hirche

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

This paper addresses the problem of learning control policies for mobile robots, modeled as unknown Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), that are tasked with temporal logic missions, such as sequencing, coverage, or surveillance. The MDP…

Robotics · Computer Science 2022-07-13 Yiannis Kantaros

We consider reinforcement learning for continuous-time Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the infinite-horizon, average-reward setting. In contrast to discrete-time MDPs, a continuous-time process moves to a state and stays there for a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-03 Xuefeng Gao , Xun Yu Zhou