Related papers: System III: Learning with Domain Knowledge for Saf…
We consider the problem of reinforcement learning under safety requirements, in which an agent is trained to complete a given task, typically formalized as the maximization of a reward signal over time, while concurrently avoiding…
Safety is an essential component for deploying reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms in real-world scenarios, and is critical during the learning process itself. A natural first approach toward safe RL is to manually specify constraints on…
Prior access to domain knowledge could significantly improve the performance of a reinforcement learning agent. In particular, it could help agents avoid potentially catastrophic exploratory actions, which would otherwise have to be…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has shown impressive success in exploring high-dimensional environments to learn complex tasks, but can often exhibit unsafe behaviors and require extensive environment interaction when exploration is…
Reinforcement learning algorithms typically necessitate extensive exploration of the state space to find optimal policies. However, in safety-critical applications, the risks associated with such exploration can lead to catastrophic…
Training a model-free reinforcement learning agent requires allowing the agent to sufficiently explore the environment to search for an optimal policy. In safety-constrained environments, utilizing unsupervised exploration or a non-optimal…
In this paper, we consider the problem of building learning agents that can efficiently learn to navigate in constrained environments. The main goal is to design agents that can efficiently learn to understand and generalize to different…
The alignment of autonomous agents with human values is a pivotal challenge when deploying these agents within physical environments, where safety is an important concern. However, defining the agent's objective as a reward and/or cost…
Safe exploration aims at addressing the limitations of Reinforcement Learning (RL) in safety-critical scenarios, where failures during trial-and-error learning may incur high costs. Several methods exist to incorporate external knowledge or…
We extend the learning from demonstration paradigm by providing a method for learning unknown constraints shared across tasks, using demonstrations of the tasks, their cost functions, and knowledge of the system dynamics and control…
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…
Safe deployment of autonomous robots in diverse scenarios requires agents that are capable of efficiently adapting to new environments while satisfying constraints. In this work, we propose a practical and theoretically-justified approach…
Safe reinforcement learning has traditionally relied on predefined constraint functions to ensure safety in complex real-world tasks, such as autonomous driving. However, defining these functions accurately for varied tasks is a persistent…
Safe reinforcement learning (RL) agents accomplish given tasks while adhering to specific constraints. Employing constraints expressed via easily-understandable human language offers considerable potential for real-world applications due to…
A recent body of work addresses safety constraints in explore-and-exploit systems. Such constraints arise where, for example, exploration is carried out by individuals whose welfare should be balanced with overall welfare. In this paper, we…
During initial iterations of training in most Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms, agents perform a significant number of random exploratory steps. In the real world, this can limit the practicality of these algorithms as it can lead to…
Safety remains a central obstacle preventing widespread use of RL in the real world: learning new tasks in uncertain environments requires extensive exploration, but safety requires limiting exploration. We propose Recovery RL, an algorithm…
This paper addresses the problem of maintaining safety during training in Reinforcement Learning (RL), such that the safety constraint violations are bounded at any point during learning. In a variety of RL applications the safety of the…
This study proposes a safe and sample-efficient reinforcement learning (RL) framework to address two major challenges in developing applicable RL algorithms: satisfying safety constraints and efficiently learning with limited samples. To…
We propose to leverage epistemic uncertainty about constraint satisfaction of a reinforcement learner in safety critical domains. We introduce a framework for specification of requirements for reinforcement learners in constrained settings,…