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Markov decision processes (MDPs) are formal models commonly used in sequential decision-making. MDPs capture the stochasticity that may arise, for instance, from imprecise actuators via probabilities in the transition function. However, in…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-06-21 Marnix Suilen , Thiago D. Simão , David Parker , Nils Jansen

Markov decision processes (MDPs) provide a standard framework for sequential decision making under uncertainty. However, MDPs do not take uncertainty in transition probabilities into account. Robust Markov decision processes (RMDPs) address…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-05-01 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Ehsan Kafshdar Goharshady , Mehrdad Karrabi , Petr Novotný , Đorđe Žikelić

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are known to be sensitive to parameter specification. Distributionally robust MDPs alleviate this issue by allowing for \emph{ambiguity sets} which give a set of possible distributions over parameter sets.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-05 Julien Grand-Clément , Christian Kroer

In this paper, we study the non-asymptotic and asymptotic performances of the optimal robust policy and value function of robust Markov Decision Processes(MDPs), where the optimal robust policy and value function are solved only from a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-08-16 Wenhao Yang , Liangyu Zhang , Zhihua Zhang

One key challenge for multi-task Reinforcement learning (RL) in practice is the absence of task indicators. Robust RL has been applied to deal with task ambiguity, but may result in over-conservative policies. To balance the worst-case…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-25 Mengdi Xu , Peide Huang , Yaru Niu , Visak Kumar , Jielin Qiu , Chao Fang , Kuan-Hui Lee , Xuewei Qi , Henry Lam , Bo Li , Ding Zhao

Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) provide a general framework to model decision problems where the system dynamics are changing or only partially known. Efficient methods for some \texttt{sa}-rectangular robust MDPs exist, using its…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-10-06 Navdeep Kumar , Kfir Levy , Kaixin Wang , Shie Mannor

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) studies decision problems under uncertainty where the probability distribution governing the uncertain problem parameters is itself uncertain. A key component of any DRO model is its ambiguity set,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-28 Daniel Kuhn , Soroosh Shafiee , Wolfram Wiesemann

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) incorporates robustness against uncertainty in the specification of probabilistic models. This paper focuses on mitigating the curse of dimensionality in data-driven DRO problems with optimal…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-11-01 Lotfi M. Chaouach , Tom Oomen , Dimitris Boskos

We consider Markov decision processes (MDPs) with unknown disturbance distribution and address this problem using the robust Markov decision process (RMDP) approach. We construct the empirical distribution of the unknown disturbance…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-11 Sivaramakrishnan Ramani

In this note we provide an upper bound for the difference between the value function of a distributionally robust Markov decision problem and the value function of a non-robust Markov decision problem, where the ambiguity set of probability…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-04-30 Ariel Neufeld , Julian Sester

This paper studies parametric Markov decision processes (pMDPs), an extension to Markov decision processes (MDPs) where transitions probabilities are described by polynomials over a finite set of parameters. Fixing values for all parameters…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2019-04-03 Tobias Winkler , Sebastian Junges , Guillermo A. Pérez , Joost-Pieter Katoen

We study the relation between different Markov Decision Process (MDP) frameworks in the machine learning and econometrics literatures, including the standard MDP, the entropy and general regularized MDP, and stochastic MDP, where the latter…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-08-19 Tien Mai , Patrick Jaillet

This position paper reflects on the state-of-the-art in decision-making under uncertainty. A classical assumption is that probabilities can sufficiently capture all uncertainty in a system. In this paper, the focus is on the uncertainty…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-03-13 Thom Badings , Thiago D. Simão , Marnix Suilen , Nils Jansen

Distributionally robust control is a well-studied framework for optimal decision making under uncertainty, with the objective of minimizing an expected cost function over control actions, assuming the most adverse probability distribution…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-08-12 Alexandros E. Tzikas , Lukas Fiechtner , Arec Jamgochian , Mykel J. Kochenderfer

Robust MDPs (RMDPs) can be used to compute policies with provable worst-case guarantees in reinforcement learning. The quality and robustness of an RMDP solution are determined by the ambiguity set---the set of plausible transition…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-02-21 Marek Petrik , Reazul Hasan Russell

In offline reinforcement learning (RL), the absence of active exploration calls for attention on the model robustness to tackle the sim-to-real gap, where the discrepancy between the simulated and deployed environments can significantly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-28 He Wang , Laixi Shi , Yuejie Chi

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a popular model for decision-making in the presence of uncertainty. The conventional view of MDPs in verification treats them as state transformers with probabilities defined over sequences of states and…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2025-07-25 Yun Chen Tsai , Kittiphon Phalakarn , S. Akshay , Ichiro Hasuo

In performative stochastic optimization, decisions can influence the distribution of random parameters, rendering the data-generating process itself decision-dependent. In practice, decision-makers rarely have access to the true…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-27 Zhuangzhuang Jia , Yijie Wang , Roy Dong , Grani A. Hanasusanto

Motivated by the need for a robust policy in the face of environment shifts between training and deployment, we contribute to the theoretical foundation of distributionally robust reinforcement learning (DRRL). This is accomplished through…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-26 Shengbo Wang , Nian Si , Jose Blanchet , Zhengyuan Zhou

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a fundamental model in sequential decision making. Robust MDPs (RMDPs) extend this framework by allowing uncertainty in transition probabilities and optimizing against the worst-case realization of that…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Ali Asadi , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Ehsan Goharshady , Mehrdad Karrabi , Alipasha Montaseri , Carlo Pagano