Related papers: Sample-and-Bound for Non-Convex Optimization

High-dimensional design spaces underpin a wide range of physics-based modeling and computational design tasks in science and engineering. These problems are commonly formulated as constrained black-box searches over rugged objective…

The key to Black-Box Optimization is to efficiently search through input regions with potentially widely-varying numerical properties, to achieve low-regret descent and fast progress toward the optima. Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) methods…

We present an extension of Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) that strongly increases its efficiency for trees with asymmetry and/or loops. Asymmetric termination of search trees introduces a type of uncertainty for which the standard upper…

Tackling simulation optimization problems with non-convex objective functions remains a fundamental challenge in operations research. In this paper, we propose a class of random search algorithms, called Regular Tree Search, which…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), most famously used in game-play artificial intelligence (e.g., the game of Go), is a well-known strategy for constructing approximate solutions to sequential decision problems. Its primary innovation is the…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a best-first sampling method employed in the search for optimal decisions. The effectiveness of MCTS relies on the construction of its statistical tree, with the selection policy playing a crucial role. A…

In this work, we consider the popular tree-based search strategy within the framework of reinforcement learning, the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), in the context of infinite-horizon discounted cost Markov Decision Process (MDP). While…

Monte Carlo Tree Search is a popular method for solving decision making problems. Faster implementations allow for more simulations within the same wall clock time, directly improving search performance. To this end, we present an…

Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) is an effective anytime algorithm with a vast amount of applications. It strategically allocates computational resources to focus on promising segments of the search tree, making it a very attractive search…

Optimization algorithms and Monte Carlo sampling algorithms have provided the computational foundations for the rapid growth in applications of statistical machine learning in recent years. There is, however, limited theoretical…

Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) has been successful in a variety of domains, but faces challenges with long-horizon exploration when compared to sampling-based motion planning algorithms like Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees. To address these…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has shown its strength for a lot of deterministic and stochastic examples, but literature lacks reports of applications to real world industrial processes. Common reasons for this are that there is no…

Taking into account future risk is essential for an autonomously operating robot to find online not only the best but also a safe action to execute. In this paper, we build upon the recently introduced formulation of probabilistic…

We consider the popular tree-based search strategy within the framework of reinforcement learning, the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), in the context of finite-horizon Markov decision process. We propose a dynamic sampling tree policy that…

One weakness of Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is its sample efficiency which can be addressed by building and using state and/or action abstractions in parallel to the tree search such that information can be shared among nodes of the same…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a sampling best-first method to search for optimal decisions. The success of MCTS depends heavily on how the MCTS statistical tree is built and the selection policy plays a fundamental role in this. A…

This work explores a novel perspective on solving nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problems by leveraging sampling based methods. Instead of treating the objective function purely through traditional (often deterministic) optimization…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a powerful algorithm for solving complex decision-making problems. This paper presents an optimized MCTS implementation applied to the FrozenLake environment, a classic reinforcement learning task…

Many robotic tasks, such as inverse kinematics, motion planning, and optimal control, can be formulated as optimization problems. Solving these problems involves addressing nonlinear kinematics, complex contact dynamics, long-horizon…

Gradient-based methods are often used for policy optimization in deep reinforcement learning, despite being vulnerable to local optima and saddle points. Although gradient-free methods (e.g., genetic algorithms or evolution strategies) help…