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In this paper, we consider the problem of allocating human operators in a system with multiple semi-autonomous robots. Each robot is required to perform an independent sequence of tasks, subjected to a chance of failing and getting stuck in…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-11-15 Abhinav Dahiya , Nima Akbarzadeh , Aditya Mahajan , Stephen L. Smith

This paper investigates the Restless Multi-Armed Bandit (RMAB) framework under individual penalty constraints to address resource allocation challenges in dynamic wireless networked environments. Unlike conventional RMAB models, our model…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Nida Zamir , I-Hong Hou

Restless bandits are an important class of problems with applications in recommender systems, active learning, revenue management and other areas. We consider infinite-horizon discounted restless bandits with many arms where a fixed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-31 Xiangyu Zhang , Peter I. Frazier

The dynamic allocation problem, also known as the `multi-armed bandit' problem, simulates a situation in which an agent is faced with a tradeoff between actions that yield an immediate reward and actions whose benefits can only be perceived…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-02-03 Christopher Wang

Restless and collapsing bandits are often used to model budget-constrained resource allocation in settings where arms have action-dependent transition probabilities, such as the allocation of health interventions among patients. However,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-20 Christine Herlihy , Aviva Prins , Aravind Srinivasan , John P. Dickerson

We present a two-armed bandit model of decision making under uncertainty where the expected return to investing in the "risky arm" increases when choosing that arm and decreases when choosing the "safe" arm. These dynamics are natural in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-03-22 Roland Fryer , Philipp Harms

A novel reinforcement learning algorithm is introduced for multiarmed restless bandits with average reward, using the paradigms of Q-learning and Whittle index. Specifically, we leverage the structure of the Whittle index policy to reduce…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-22 Konstantin E. Avrachenkov , Vivek S. Borkar

Restless multi-armed bandits (RMABs) provide a scalable framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, but classical formulations assume binary actions and a single global budget. Real-world settings, such as healthcare, often…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-28 Himadri S. Pandey , Kai Wang , Gian-Gabriel P. Garcia

We consider a class of restless bandit problems that finds a broad application area in reinforcement learning and stochastic optimization. We consider $N$ independent discrete-time Markov processes, each of which had two possible states: 1…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-14 Keqin Liu , Richard Weber , Chengzhong Zhang

We study a resource allocation problem with varying requests, and with resources of limited capacity shared by multiple requests. It is modeled as a set of heterogeneous Restless Multi-Armed Bandit Problems (RMABPs) connected by constraints…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-03-30 Jing Fu , Bill Moran , Peter G. Taylor

In this paper, we investigate a general delay-aware channel allocation problem where the number of channels is less than that of users. Due to the proliferation of delay sensitive applications, the objective of our problem is chosen to be…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-05-22 Saad Kriouile , Mohamad Assaad , Maialen Larranaga

The optimal scheduling problem in single-server queueing systems is a classic problem in queueing theory. The Gittins index policy is known to be the optimal preemptive nonanticipating policy (both for the open version of the problem with…

Performance · Computer Science 2021-03-22 Samuli Aalto

Restless multi-armed bandits are often used to model budget-constrained resource allocation tasks where receipt of the resource is associated with an increased probability of a favorable state transition. Prior work assumes that individual…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-12-13 Christine Herlihy , John P. Dickerson

Partially observable restless multi-armed bandits have found numerous applications including in recommendation systems, communication systems, public healthcare outreach systems, and in operations research. We study multi-action partially…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-03 Rahul Meshram , Kesav Kaza

This paper studies restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problems with unknown arm transition dynamics but with known correlated arm features. The goal is to learn a model to predict transition dynamics given features, where the Whittle index…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-15 Kai Wang , Shresth Verma , Aditya Mate , Sanket Shah , Aparna Taneja , Neha Madhiwalla , Aparna Hegde , Milind Tambe

Whittle index policy is a powerful tool to obtain asymptotically optimal solutions for the notoriously intractable problem of restless bandits. However, finding the Whittle indices remains a difficult problem for many practical restless…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-21 Khaled Nakhleh , Santosh Ganji , Ping-Chun Hsieh , I-Hong Hou , Srinivas Shakkottai

The trade-off between the cost of acquiring and processing data, and uncertainty due to a lack of data is fundamental in machine learning. A basic instance of this trade-off is the problem of deciding when to make noisy and costly…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-03-30 Christopher R. Dance , Tomi Silander

We consider finite-horizon restless bandits with multiple pulls per period, which play an important role in recommender systems, active learning, revenue management, and many other areas. While an optimal policy can be computed, in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-07-27 Xiangyu Zhang , Peter I. Frazier

In this paper, we consider a queueing system with multiple channels (or servers) and multiple classes of users. We aim at allocating the available channels among the users in such a way to minimize the expected total average queue length of…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2019-02-07 Saad Kriouile , Maialen Larranaga , Mohamad Assaad

This paper considers a Markovian model for the optimal dynamic routing of homogeneous traffic to parallel heterogeneous queues, each having its own finite input buffer and server pool, where buffer and server-pool sizes, as well as service…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-07-26 José Niño-Mora