Related papers: An Optimal-Control Approach to Infinite-Horizon Re…
We consider the infinite-horizon, average-reward restless bandit problem in discrete time. We propose a new class of policies that are designed to drive a progressively larger subset of arms toward the optimal distribution. We show that our…
In this paper we consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for uncontrolled restless bandit problems. In an uncontrolled restless bandit problem, there is a finite set of arms, each of which when pulled yields a positive reward.…
We consider the discrete time infinite horizon average reward restless markovian bandit (RMAB) problem. We propose a \emph{model predictive control} based non-stationary policy with a rolling computational horizon $\tau$. At each time-slot,…
We consider the infinite-horizon average-reward restless bandit problem. We propose a novel \emph{two-set policy} that maintains two dynamic subsets of arms: one subset of arms has a nearly optimal state distribution and takes actions…
We provide a framework to analyse control policies for the restless Markovian bandit model, under both finite and infinite time horizon. We show that when the population of arms goes to infinity, the value of the optimal control policy…
For the model of constrained multi-armed bandit, we show that by construction there exists an index-based deterministic asymptotically optimal algorithm. The optimality is achieved by the convergence of the probability of choosing an…
We address the problem of identifying the optimal policy with a fixed confidence level in a multi-armed bandit setup, when \emph{the arms are subject to linear constraints}. Unlike the standard best-arm identification problem which is well…
We study the infinite-horizon restless bandit problem with the average reward criterion, in both discrete-time and continuous-time settings. A fundamental goal is to efficiently compute policies that achieve a diminishing optimality gap as…
For the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem from a constrained model that generalizes the classical one, we show that an asymptotic optimality is achievable by a simple strategy extended from the $\epsilon_t$-greedy strategy. We…
We consider restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) with a finite horizon and multiple pulls per period. Leveraging the Lagrangian relaxation, we approximate the problem with a collection of single arm problems. We then propose an index-based…
We consider the problem of maximizing the expected average reward obtained over an infinite time horizon by $n$ weakly coupled Markov decision processes. Our setup is a substantial generalization of the multi-armed restless bandit problem…
We consider a general infinite horizon Heterogeneous Restless multi-armed Bandit (RMAB). Heterogeneity is a fundamental problem for many real-world systems largely because it resists many concentration arguments. In this paper, we assume…
We study a finite time horizon Markov decision process (MDP) consisting of several groups of multi-action finite-state restless bandit processes, which are identical within each group. The bandit processes into different groups can be…
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…
We study the asymptotic optimal control of multi-class restless bandits. A restless bandit is a controllable stochastic process whose state evolution depends on whether or not the bandit is made active. Since finding the optimal control is…
Many control problems in environments that can be modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs) concern infinite-time horizon specifications. The classical aim in this context is to compute a control policy that maximizes the probability of…
This paper considers the infinite horizon optimal control problem for nonlinear systems. Under the condition of nonlinear controllability of the system to any terminal set containing the origin and forward invariance of the terminal set, we…
We study the problem of identifying the best arm in a multi-armed bandit environment when each arm is a time-homogeneous and ergodic discrete-time Markov process on a common, finite state space. The state evolution on each arm is governed…
We consider a general multi-armed bandit problem with correlated (and simple contextual and restless) elements, as a relaxed control problem. By introducing an entropy regularisation, we obtain a smooth asymptotic approximation to the value…
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…