Related papers: Variance-Reduced Cascade Q-learning: Algorithms an…

We propose weakly coupled deep Q-networks (WCDQN), a novel deep reinforcement learning algorithm that enhances performance in a class of structured problems called weakly coupled Markov decision processes (WCMDP). WCMDPs consist of multiple…

In this paper, we consider a modified version of the control problem in a model free Markov decision process (MDP) setting with large state and action spaces. The control problem most commonly addressed in the contemporary literature is to…

Value iteration-type methods have been extensively studied for computing a nearly optimal value function in reinforcement learning (RL). Under a generative sampling model, these methods can achieve sharper sample complexity than policy…

This paper presents a distributionally robust Q-Learning algorithm (DrQ) which leverages Wasserstein ambiguity sets to provide idealistic probabilistic out-of-sample safety guarantees during online learning. First, we follow past work by…

We study time-inhomogeneous episodic reinforcement learning (RL) under general function approximation and sparse rewards. We design a new algorithm, Variance-weighted Optimistic $Q$-Learning (VO$Q$L), based on $Q$-learning and bound its…

Consider a Markov decision process (MDP) that admits a set of state-action features, which can linearly express the process's probabilistic transition model. We propose a parametric Q-learning algorithm that finds an approximate-optimal…

This paper presents a sample-efficient, data-driven control framework for finite-horizon linear quadratic (LQ) control of linear time-varying (LTV) systems. In contrast to the time-invariant case, the time-varying LQ problem involves a…

This paper studies a discrete-time stochastic control problem with linear quadratic criteria over an infinite-time horizon. We focus on a class of control systems whose system matrices are associated with random parameters involving unknown…

The field of Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has emerged recently in the hopes of finding new machine learning protocols or exponential speedups for classical ones. Apart from problems with vanishing gradients and efficient encoding methods,…

In many sequential decision-making problems one is interested in minimizing an expected cumulative cost while taking into account \emph{risk}, i.e., increased awareness of events of small probability and high consequences. Accordingly, the…

Unlike traditional model-based reinforcement learning approaches that estimate system parameters from data, non-model-based data-driven control learns the optimal policy directly from input-state data without any intermediate model…

Reinforcement learning studies how an agent should interact with an environment to maximize its cumulative reward. A standard way to study this question abstractly is to ask how many samples an agent needs from the environment to learn an…

This work proposes an approach that integrates reinforcement learning and model predictive control (MPC) to solve finite-horizon optimal control problems in mixed-logical dynamical systems efficiently. Optimization-based control of such…

Q-learning is a stochastic approximation version of the classic value iteration. The literature has established that Q-learning suffers from both maximization bias and slower convergence. Recently, multi-step algorithms have shown practical…

The paper considers a class of multi-agent Markov decision processes (MDPs), in which the network agents respond differently (as manifested by the instantaneous one-stage random costs) to a global controlled state and the control actions of…

In this paper, we propose a simple variant of the original SVRG, called variance reduced stochastic gradient descent (VR-SGD). Unlike the choices of snapshot and starting points in SVRG and its proximal variant, Prox-SVRG, the two vectors…

The Robust Markov Decision Process (RMDP) framework focuses on designing control policies that are robust against the parameter uncertainties due to the mismatches between the simulator model and real-world settings. An RMDP problem is…

This work considers the sample and computational complexity of obtaining an $\epsilon$-optimal policy in a discounted Markov Decision Process (MDP), given only access to a generative model. In this work, we study the effectiveness of the…

A central issue lying at the heart of online reinforcement learning (RL) is data efficiency. While a number of recent works achieved asymptotically minimal regret in online RL, the optimality of these results is only guaranteed in a…

Value function based reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, for example, $Q$-learning, learn optimal policies from datasets of actions, rewards, and state transitions. However, when the underlying state transition dynamics are stochastic…