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Policy optimization, which finds the desired policy by maximizing value functions via optimization techniques, lies at the heart of reinforcement learning (RL). In addition to value maximization, other practical considerations arise as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-12 Wenhao Zhan , Shicong Cen , Baihe Huang , Yuxin Chen , Jason D. Lee , Yuejie Chi

Modern policy optimization methods roughly follow the policy mirror descent (PMD) algorithmic template, for which there are by now numerous theoretical convergence results. However, most of these either target tabular environments, or can…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-08 Uri Sherman , Tomer Koren , Yishay Mansour

Mirror descent (MD), a well-known first-order method in constrained convex optimization, has recently been shown as an important tool to analyze trust-region algorithms in reinforcement learning (RL). However, there remains a considerable…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-08 Manan Tomar , Lior Shani , Yonathan Efroni , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

Modern deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are motivated by either the generalised policy iteration (GPI) or trust-region learning (TRL) frameworks. However, algorithms that strictly respect these theoretical frameworks have proven…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-21 Jakub Grudzien Kuba , Christian Schroeder de Witt , Jakob Foerster

We propose Dual Approximation Policy Optimization (DAPO), a framework that incorporates general function approximation into policy mirror descent methods. In contrast to the popular approach of using the $L_2$-norm to measure function…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-03 Zhihan Xiong , Maryam Fazel , Lin Xiao

We investigate the theoretical aspects of offline reinforcement learning (RL) under general function approximation. While prior works (e.g., Xie et al., 2021) have established the theoretical foundations of learning a good policy from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Xiang Li , Yuheng Zhang , Nan Jiang

Guided policy search algorithms can be used to optimize complex nonlinear policies, such as deep neural networks, without directly computing policy gradients in the high-dimensional parameter space. Instead, these methods use supervised…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-07-18 William Montgomery , Sergey Levine

We present new policy mirror descent (PMD) methods for solving reinforcement learning (RL) problems with either strongly convex or general convex regularizers. By exploring the structural properties of these overall highly nonconvex…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-08 Guanghui Lan

Natural policy gradient (NPG) is a common policy optimization algorithm and can be viewed as mirror ascent in the space of probabilities. Recently, Vaswani et al. [2021] introduced a policy gradient method that corresponds to mirror ascent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-02 Reza Asad , Reza Babanezhad , Issam Laradji , Nicolas Le Roux , Sharan Vaswani

Proximal policy optimization and trust region policy optimization (PPO and TRPO) with actor and critic parametrized by neural networks achieve significant empirical success in deep reinforcement learning. However, due to nonconvexity, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-01 Boyi Liu , Qi Cai , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang

Reinforcement learning (RL) problems over general state and action spaces are notoriously challenging. In contrast to the tableau setting, one can not enumerate all the states and then iteratively update the policies for each state. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Caleb Ju , Guanghui Lan

Policy mirror descent (PMD) is a general policy optimization framework in reinforcement learning, which can cover a wide range of typical policy optimization methods by specifying different mirror maps. Existing analysis of PMD requires…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-09-24 Jiacai Liu , Wenye Li , Ke Wei

We focus on parameterized policy search for reinforcement learning over continuous action spaces. Typically, one assumes the score function associated with a policy is bounded, which fails to hold even for Gaussian policies. To properly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-01 Amrit Singh Bedi , Souradip Chakraborty , Anjaly Parayil , Brian Sadler , Pratap Tokekar , Alec Koppel

Policy Mirror Descent (PMD) has emerged as a unifying framework in reinforcement learning (RL) by linking policy gradient methods with a first-order optimization method known as mirror descent. At its core, PMD incorporates two key…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-14 Jan Felix Kleuker , Aske Plaat , Thomas Moerland

Policy Mirror Descent (PMD) is a popular framework in reinforcement learning, serving as a unifying perspective that encompasses numerous algorithms. These algorithms are derived through the selection of a mirror map and enjoy finite-time…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-01-07 Carlo Alfano , Sebastian Towers , Silvia Sapora , Chris Lu , Patrick Rebeschini

Learning-to-optimize is an emerging framework that leverages training data to speed up the solution of certain optimization problems. One such approach is based on the classical mirror descent algorithm, where the mirror map is modelled…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-06-05 Hong Ye Tan , Subhadip Mukherjee , Junqi Tang , Andreas Hauptmann , Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb

Tremendous progress has been made in reinforcement learning (RL) over the past decade. Most of these advancements came through the continual development of new algorithms, which were designed using a combination of mathematical derivations,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-14 Chris Lu , Jakub Grudzien Kuba , Alistair Letcher , Luke Metz , Christian Schroeder de Witt , Jakob Foerster

Projected policy gradient under the simplex parameterization, policy gradient and natural policy gradient under the softmax parameterization, are fundamental algorithms in reinforcement learning. There have been a flurry of recent…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-12 Jiacai Liu , Wenye Li , Ke Wei

Policy Mirror Descent (PMD) stands as a versatile algorithmic framework encompassing several seminal policy gradient algorithms such as natural policy gradient, with connections with state-of-the-art reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-07 Kimon Protopapas , Anas Barakat

Safety is an essential requirement for reinforcement learning systems. The newly emerging framework of robust constrained Markov decision processes allows learning policies that satisfy long-term constraints while providing guarantees under…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-19 David M. Bossens , Atsushi Nitanda
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