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Related papers: Q-learning with Posterior Sampling

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Most provably-efficient learning algorithms introduce optimism about poorly-understood states and actions to encourage exploration. We study an alternative approach for efficient exploration, posterior sampling for reinforcement learning…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2013-12-30 Ian Osband , Daniel Russo , Benjamin Van Roy

Learning in POMDPs is known to be significantly harder than in MDPs. In this paper, we consider the online learning problem for episodic POMDPs with unknown transition and observation models. We propose a Posterior Sampling-based…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-24 Dengwang Tang , Dongze Ye , Rahul Jain , Ashutosh Nayyar , Pierluigi Nuzzo

Constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) model scenarios of sequential decision making with multiple objectives that are increasingly important in many applications. However, the model is often unknown and must be learned online while…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-30 Krishna C Kalagarla , Rahul Jain , Pierluigi Nuzzo

Balancing exploration and exploitation is crucial in reinforcement learning (RL). In this paper, we study model-based posterior sampling for reinforcement learning (PSRL) in continuous state-action spaces theoretically and empirically.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-18 Ying Fan , Yifei Ming

This paper considers the use of a simple posterior sampling algorithm to balance between exploration and exploitation when learning to optimize actions such as in multi-armed bandit problems. The algorithm, also known as Thompson Sampling,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-02-04 Daniel Russo , Benjamin Van Roy

We analyze the Bayesian regret of the Gaussian process posterior sampling reinforcement learning (GP-PSRL) algorithm. Posterior sampling is an effective heuristic for decision-making under uncertainty that has been used to develop…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-03-10 Hamish Flynn , Joe Watson , Ingmar Posner , Jan Peters

We consider reinforcement learning in an environment modeled by an episodic, finite, stage-dependent Markov decision process of horizon $H$ with $S$ states, and $A$ actions. The performance of an agent is measured by the regret after…

We present a new algorithm based on posterior sampling for learning in constrained Markov decision processes (CMDP) in the infinite-horizon undiscounted setting. The algorithm achieves near-optimal regret bounds while being advantageous…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-28 Danil Provodin , Pratik Gajane , Mykola Pechenizkiy , Maurits Kaptein

We study a posterior sampling approach to efficient exploration in constrained reinforcement learning. Alternatively to existing algorithms, we propose two simple algorithms that are more efficient statistically, simpler to implement and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-09 Danil Provodin , Pratik Gajane , Mykola Pechenizkiy , Maurits Kaptein

Despite remarkable successes, deep reinforcement learning algorithms remain sample inefficient: they require an enormous amount of trial and error to find good policies. Model-based algorithms promise sample efficiency by building an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-19 Remo Sasso , Michelangelo Conserva , Paulo Rauber

We study Thompson Sampling-based algorithms for stochastic bandits with bounded rewards. As the existing problem-dependent regret bound for Thompson Sampling with Gaussian priors [Agrawal and Goyal, 2017] is vacuous when $T \le 288 e^{64}$,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-03 Bingshan Hu , Zhiming Huang , Tianyue H. Zhang , Mathias Lécuyer , Nidhi Hegde

We present a new algorithm based on posterior sampling for learning in Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDP) in the infinite-horizon undiscounted setting. The algorithm achieves near-optimal regret bounds while being advantageous…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-30 Danil Provodin , Maurits Kaptein , Mykola Pechenizkiy

Computational results demonstrate that posterior sampling for reinforcement learning (PSRL) dramatically outperforms algorithms driven by optimism, such as UCRL2. We provide insight into the extent of this performance boost and the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-06-14 Ian Osband , Benjamin Van Roy

We develop an extension of posterior sampling for reinforcement learning (PSRL) that is suited for a continuing agent-environment interface and integrates naturally into agent designs that scale to complex environments. The approach,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Wanqiao Xu , Shi Dong , Benjamin Van Roy

Thompson Sampling is one of the most effective methods for contextual bandits and has been generalized to posterior sampling for certain MDP settings. However, existing posterior sampling methods for reinforcement learning are limited by…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-24 Christoph Dann , Mehryar Mohri , Tong Zhang , Julian Zimmert

In this paper, we introduce Randomized Q-learning (RandQL), a novel randomized model-free algorithm for regret minimization in episodic Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). To the best of our knowledge, RandQL is the first tractable model-free…

We consider the problem of online reinforcement learning for the Stochastic Shortest Path (SSP) problem modeled as an unknown MDP with an absorbing state. We propose PSRL-SSP, a simple posterior sampling-based reinforcement learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-11 Mehdi Jafarnia-Jahromi , Liyu Chen , Rahul Jain , Haipeng Luo

We study meta-reinforcement learning in finite-horizon MDPs where related tasks share similar structures in their optimal action-value functions. Specifically, we posit a linear representation $Q^*_h(s,a)=\Phi_h(s,a)\,\theta^{(k)}_h$ and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-08 Runlin Zhou , Chixiang Chen , Elynn Chen

We propose a practical non-episodic PSRL algorithm that unlike recent state-of-the-art PSRL algorithms uses a deterministic, model-independent episode switching schedule. Our algorithm termed deterministic schedule PSRL (DS-PSRL) is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-10-24 Georgios Theocharous , Zheng Wen , Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Nikos Vlassis

While Bayesian-based exploration often demonstrates superior empirical performance compared to bonus-based methods in model-based reinforcement learning (RL), its theoretical understanding remains limited for model-free settings. Existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-05 He Wang , Xingyu Xu , Yuejie Chi
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