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Related papers: Recurrent Natural Policy Gradient for POMDPs

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Real-world decision-making problems are often partially observable, and many can be formulated as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP). When we apply reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms to the POMDP, reasonable…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-04-20 Soichiro Nishimori , Sotetsu Koyamada , Shin Ishii

While policy optimization algorithms have played an important role in recent empirical success of Reinforcement Learning (RL), the existing theoretical understanding of policy optimization remains rather limited -- they are either…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-05 Qinghua Liu , Gellért Weisz , András György , Chi Jin , Csaba Szepesvári

In a broad class of reinforcement learning applications, stochastic rewards have heavy-tailed distributions, which lead to infinite second-order moments for stochastic (semi)gradients in policy evaluation and direct policy optimization. In…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-21 Semih Cayci , Atilla Eryilmaz

We study robust reinforcement learning (RL) with the goal of determining a well-performing policy that is robust against model mismatch between the training simulator and the testing environment. Previous policy-based robust RL algorithms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-12 Ruida Zhou , Tao Liu , Min Cheng , Dileep Kalathil , P. R. Kumar , Chao Tian

We consider the estimation of the policy gradient in partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP) with a special class of structured policies that are finite-state controllers. We show that the gradient estimation can be done in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-07-09 Huizhen Yu

We propose a new reinforcement learning algorithm for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP) based on spectral decomposition methods. While spectral methods have been previously employed for consistent learning of (passive)…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-06-20 Kamyar Azizzadenesheli , Alessandro Lazaric , Animashree Anandkumar

We study policy gradient methods for reinforcement learning in non-Markovian decision processes (NMDPs), where observations and rewards depend on the entire interaction history. To handle this dependence, the agent maintains an internal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Avik Kar , Siddharth Chandak , Rahul Singh , Soumitra Sinhahajari , Eric Moulines , Shalabh Bhatnagar , Nicholas Bambos

The continuous nature of belief states in POMDPs presents significant computational challenges in learning the optimal policy. In this paper, we consider an approach that solves a Partially Observable Reinforcement Learning (PORL) problem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Ameya Anjarlekar , Rasoul Etesami , R Srikant

Natural policy gradient (NPG) methods are among the most widely used policy optimization algorithms in contemporary reinforcement learning. This class of methods is often applied in conjunction with entropy regularization -- an algorithmic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-09-13 Shicong Cen , Chen Cheng , Yuxin Chen , Yuting Wei , Yuejie Chi

We propose a new reinforcement learning algorithm for partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP) based on spectral decomposition methods. While spectral methods have been previously employed for consistent learning of (passive)…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-06-20 Kamyar Azizzadenesheli , Alessandro Lazaric , Animashree Anandkumar

To overcome the curses of dimensionality and modeling of Dynamic Programming (DP) methods to solve Markov Decision Process (MDP) problems, Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods are adopted in practice. Contrary to traditional RL algorithms…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-24 Arghyadip Roy , Vivek Borkar , Abhay Karandikar , Prasanna Chaporkar

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), the mathematical framework underlying most algorithms in Reinforcement Learning (RL), are often used in a way that wrongfully assumes that the state of an agent's environment does not change during action…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-13 Simon Ramstedt , Christopher Pal

This work studies an independent natural policy gradient (NPG) algorithm for the multi-agent reinforcement learning problem in Markov potential games. It is shown that, under mild technical assumptions and the introduction of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-30 Youbang Sun , Tao Liu , Ruida Zhou , P. R. Kumar , Shahin Shahrampour

Planning plays an important role in the broad class of decision theory. Planning has drawn much attention in recent work in the robotics and sequential decision making areas. Recently, Reinforcement Learning (RL), as an agent-environment…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2016-08-18 Kamyar Azizzadenesheli , Alessandro Lazaric , Animashree Anandkumar

Federated reinforcement learning (RL) enables collaborative decision making of multiple distributed agents without sharing local data trajectories. In this work, we consider a multi-task setting, in which each agent has its own private…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-19 Tong Yang , Shicong Cen , Yuting Wei , Yuxin Chen , Yuejie Chi

This letter studies multi-agent reinforcement learning in partially observable Markov potential games. Solving this problem is challenging due to partial observability, decentralized information, and the curse of dimensionality. First, to…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2026-04-02 Wonseok Yang , Thinh T. Doan

Neural ordinary differential equations (ODEs) are widely recognized as the standard for modeling physical mechanisms, which help to perform approximate inference in unknown physical or biological environments. In partially observable (PO)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Xuanle Zhao , Duzhen Zhang , Liyuan Han , Tielin Zhang , Bo Xu

Multi-task reinforcement learning (RL) aims to find a single policy that effectively solves multiple tasks at the same time. This paper presents a constrained formulation for multi-task RL where the goal is to maximize the average…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-05-07 Sihan Zeng , Thinh T. Doan , Justin Romberg

Policy gradient and actor-critic algorithms form the basis of many commonly used training techniques in deep reinforcement learning. Using these algorithms in multiagent environments poses problems such as nonstationarity and instability.…

Multi-agent interactions are increasingly important in the context of reinforcement learning, and the theoretical foundations of policy gradient methods have attracted surging research interest. We investigate the global convergence of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-21 Sarath Pattathil , Kaiqing Zhang , Asuman Ozdaglar