Related papers: A learning-based approach to stochastic optimal co…
We propose a stochastic MPC scheme using an optimization over the initial state for the predicted trajectory. Considering linear discrete-time systems under unbounded additive stochastic disturbances subject to chance constraints, we use…
In this paper, we show how a simulated Markov decision process (MDP) built by the so-called \emph{baseline} policies, can be used to compute a different policy, namely the \emph{simulated optimal} policy, for which the performance of this…
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…
We study stochastic optimization algorithms for constrained nonconvex stochastic optimization problems with Markovian data. In particular, we focus on the case when the transition kernel of the Markov chain is state-dependent. Such…
We study the policy testing problem in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) in the fixed-confidence setting under a generative model with static sampling. The goal is to decide whether the value of a given policy exceeds a specified…
We study continuous action reinforcement learning problems in which it is crucial that the agent interacts with the environment only through safe policies, i.e.,~policies that do not take the agent to undesirable situations. We formulate…
This paper investigates a class of optimal control problems associated with Markov processes with local state information. The decision-maker has only local access to a subset of a state vector information as often encountered in…
The deployment of autonomous systems in safety-critical environments requires control policies that guarantee satisfaction of complex control specifications. These systems are commonly modeled as nonlinear discrete-time stochastic systems.…
We consider discounted infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), where the goal is to find an optimal policy that maximizes the expected cumulative reward while satisfying expected cumulative constraints. Motivated by…
With the advancement of autonomous driving, ensuring safety during motion planning and navigation is becoming more and more important. However, most end-to-end planning methods suffer from a lack of safety. This research addresses the…
In this paper the connection between stochastic optimal control and reinforcement learning is investigated. Our main motivation is to apply importance sampling to sampling rare events which can be reformulated as an optimal control problem.…
We consider the stochastic shortest path planning problem in MDPs, i.e., the problem of designing policies that ensure reaching a goal state from a given initial state with minimum accrued cost. In order to account for rare but important…
This paper studies the approximation of optimal control policies by quantized (discretized) policies for a very general class of Markov decision processes (MDPs). The problem is motivated by applications in networked control systems,…
In this paper, we use concepts from supervisory control theory of discrete event systems to propose a method to learn optimal control policies for a finite-state Markov Decision Process (MDP) in which (only) certain sequences of actions are…
Policy gradient methods are among the most effective methods in challenging reinforcement learning problems with large state and/or action spaces. However, little is known about even their most basic theoretical convergence properties,…
We study a large-scale patrol problem with state-dependent costs and multi-agent coordination.We consider heterogeneous agents, rather general reward functions, and the capabilities of tracking agents' trajectories.Given the complexity and…
We are interested in risk constraints for infinite horizon discrete time Markov decision processes (MDPs). Starting with average reward MDPs, we show that increasing concave stochastic dominance constraints on the empirical distribution of…
We consider large-scale Markov decision processes (MDPs) with an unknown cost function and employ stochastic convex optimization tools to address the problem of imitation learning, which consists of learning a policy from a finite set of…
This paper is concerned with the maximum principle of stochastic optimal control problems, where the coefficients of the state equation and the cost functional are uncertain, and the system is generally under Markovian regime switching.…
In this article we approach a class of stochastic reachability problems with state constraints from an optimal control perspective. Preceding approaches to solving these reachability problems are either confined to the deterministic setting…