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Graph games are fundamental in strategic reasoning of multi-agent systems and their environments. We study a new family of graph games which combine stochastic environmental uncertainties and auction-based interactions among the agents,…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-12-30 Guy Avni , Martin Kurečka , Kaushik Mallik , Petr Novotný , Suman Sadhukhan

In this paper, we study the learning of safe policies in the setting of reinforcement learning problems. This is, we aim to control a Markov Decision Process (MDP) of which we do not know the transition probabilities, but we have access to…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-01-14 Santiago Paternain , Miguel Calvo-Fullana , Luiz F. O. Chamon , Alejandro Ribeiro

Markov decision processes (MDP) and continuous-time MDP (CTMDP) are the fundamental models for non-deterministic systems with probabilistic uncertainty. Mean payoff (a.k.a. long-run average reward) is one of the most classic objectives…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-06-06 Chaitanya Agarwal , Shibashis Guha , Jan Křetínský , M. Pazhamalai

Dynamic optimization of mean and variance in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is a long-standing challenge caused by the failure of dynamic programming. In this paper, we propose a new approach to find the globally optimal policy for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-02-28 Li Xia , Shuai Ma

Markov Decision Problems (MDPs) provide a foundational framework for modelling sequential decision-making across diverse domains, guided by optimality criteria such as discounted and average rewards. However, these criteria have inherent…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-26 Dibyangshu Mukherjee , Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan

We present new algorithms for computing and approximating bisimulation metrics in Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Bisimulation metrics are an elegant formalism that capture behavioral equivalence between states and provide strong…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-22 Pablo Samuel Castro

We introduce a novel approach to hierarchical reinforcement learning for Linearly-solvable Markov Decision Processes (LMDPs) in the infinite-horizon average-reward setting. Unlike previous work, our approach allows learning low-level and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-10 Guillermo Infante , Anders Jonsson , Vicenç Gómez

We develop an exhaustive study of Markov decision process (MDP) under mean field interaction both on states and actions in the presence of common noise, and when optimization is performed over open-loop controls on infinite horizon. Such…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-10 Médéric Motte , Huyên Pham

We study the sequential decision making problem of maximizing the expected total reward while satisfying a constraint on the expected total utility. We employ the natural policy gradient method to solve the discounted infinite-horizon…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-16 Dongsheng Ding , Kaiqing Zhang , Jiali Duan , Tamer Başar , Mihailo R. Jovanović

This paper studies the expected value of multiplicative rewards, where rewards obtained in each step are multiplied (instead of the usual addition), in Markov chains (MCs) and Markov decision processes (MDPs). One of the key differences to…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-06-24 Christel Baier , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Tobias Meggendorfer , Jakob Piribauer

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

One of the most widely used methods for solving average cost MDP problems is the value iteration method. This method, however, is often computationally impractical and restricted in size of solvable MDP problems. We propose acceleration…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2008-06-03 Oleksandr Shlakhter , Chi-Guhn Lee

Markov decision processes (MDP) are useful to model optimisation problems in concurrent systems. To verify MDPs with efficient Monte Carlo techniques requires that their nondeterminism be resolved by a scheduler. Recent work has introduced…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2016-11-15 Pedro D'Argenio , Axel Legay , Sean Sedwards , Louis-Marie Traonouez

We formalize the problem of maximizing the mean-payoff value with high probability while satisfying a parity objective in a Markov decision process (MDP) with unknown probabilistic transition function and unknown reward function. Assuming…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-08-24 Jan Křetínský , Guillermo A. Pérez , Jean-François Raskin

We study the problem of efficient exploration in order to learn an accurate model of an environment, modeled as a Markov decision process (MDP). Efficient exploration in this problem requires the agent to identify the regions in which…

We consider the problem of approximating the reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDP) with uncountable (continuous) state and action spaces. While there are algorithms that, for special classes of such MDP, provide a…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2022-07-13 Kush Grover , Jan Křetínský , Tobias Meggendorfer , Maximilian Weininger

We consider synthesis of control policies that maximize the probability of satisfying given temporal logic specifications in unknown, stochastic environments. We model the interaction between the system and its environment as a Markov…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2014-05-01 Jie Fu , Ufuk Topcu

Value iteration is a fixed point iteration technique utilized to obtain the optimal value function and policy in a discounted reward Markov Decision Process (MDP). Here, a contraction operator is constructed and applied repeatedly to arrive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-21 Chandramouli Kamanchi , Raghuram Bharadwaj Diddigi , Shalabh Bhatnagar

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) offer a fairly generic and powerful framework to discuss the notion of optimal policies for dynamic systems, in particular when the dynamics are stochastic. However, computing the optimal policy of an MDP…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2024-07-24 Dirk Reinhardt , Akhil S. Anand , Shambhuraj Sawant , Sebastien Gros

Markov chains are the de facto finite-state model for stochastic dynamical systems, and Markov decision processes (MDPs) extend Markov chains by incorporating non-deterministic behaviors. Given an MDP and rewards on states, a classical…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2024-11-13 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Laurent Doyen