Related papers: Positive Dynamic Programming: A Critique
Most reinforcement learning methods are based upon the key assumption that the transition dynamics and reward functions are fixed, that is, the underlying Markov decision process is stationary. However, in many real-world applications, this…
Parameter control aims at realizing performance gains through a dynamic choice of the parameters which determine the behavior of the underlying optimization algorithm. In the context of evolutionary algorithms this research line has for a…
The present paper considers the constrained optimal control problem with total undiscounted criteria for a continuous-time Markov decision process (CTMDP) in Borel state and action spaces. Under the standard compactness and continuity…
Dynamic mechanism design is a challenging extension to ordinary mechanism design in which the mechanism designer must make a sequence of decisions over time in the face of possibly untruthful reports of participating agents. Optimizing…
We investigate a class of optimal stopping problems arising in, for example, studies considering the timing of an irreversible investment when the underlying follows a skew Brownian motion. Our results indicate that the local directional…
We present a method of solving the T-optimal design problem for nonlinear dynamical systems using dynamic programming. In contrast with previous dynamic programming formulations, we avoid adding an equation for the dispersion to the system…
We examine the problem of the existence of optimal deterministic stationary strategiesintwo-players antagonistic (zero-sum) perfect information stochastic games with finitely many states and actions.We show that the existenceof such…
We present a novel probabilistic approach for optimal path experimental design. In this approach a discrete path optimization problem is defined on a static navigation mesh, and trajectories are modeled as random variables governed by a…
We present a method for determining optimal modes of operation for autonomously oscillating systems with uncertain parameters. In a typical application of the method, a nonlinear dynamical system is optimized with respect to an economic…
We consider how to use the Bellman residual of the dynamic programming operator to compute suboptimality bounds for solutions to stochastic shortest path problems. Such bounds have been previously established only in the special case that…
We propose a discretization of the optimality principle in dynamic programming based on radial basis functions and Shepard's moving least squares approximation method. We prove convergence of the approximate optimal value function to the…
We study existence and uniqueness of the fixed points solutions of a large class of non-linear variable discounted transfer operators associated to a sequential decision-making process. We establish regularity properties of these solutions,…
It has long been observed that the performance of evolutionary algorithms and other randomized search heuristics can benefit from a non-static choice of the parameters that steer their optimization behavior. Mechanisms that identify…
Optimization is an important module of modern machine learning applications. Tremendous efforts have been made to accelerate optimization algorithms. A common formulation is achieving a lower loss at a given time. This enables a…
We study an optimal control problem in which both the objective function and the dynamic constraint contain an uncertain parameter. Since the distribution of this uncertain parameter is not exactly known, the objective function is taken as…
Differential dynamic programming (DDP) is a direct single shooting method for trajectory optimization. Its efficiency derives from the exploitation of temporal structure (inherent to optimal control problems) and explicit…
In this paper, we consider the problem of dynamic programming when supremum terms appear in the objective function. Such terms can represent overhead costs associated with the underlying state variables. Specifically, this form of…
Affine policies (or control) are widely used as a solution approach in dynamic optimization where computing an optimal adjustable solution is usually intractable. While the worst case performance of affine policies can be significantly bad,…
For a Markov decision process with countably infinite states, the optimal value may not be achievable in the set of stationary policies. In this paper, we study the existence conditions of an optimal stationary policy in a countable-state…
This paper bridges some of the gap between optimal planning and reinforcement learning (RL), both of which share roots in dynamic programming applied to sequential decision making or optimal control. Whereas planning typically favors…