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We study the problem of Non-Stationary Reinforcement Learning (NS-RL) without prior knowledge about the system's non-stationarity. A state-of-the-art, black-box algorithm, known as MASTER, is considered, with a focus on identifying the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-11 Argyrios Gerogiannis , Yu-Han Huang , Venugopal V. Veeravalli

Operating under real world conditions is challenging due to the possibility of a wide range of failures induced by execution errors and state uncertainty. In relatively benign settings, such failures can be overcome by retrying or executing…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-10 Shivam Vats , Maxim Likhachev , Oliver Kroemer

The exploration-exploitation dilemma has been a central challenge in reinforcement learning (RL) with complex model classes. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, Monotonic Q-Learning with Upper Confidence Bound (MQL-UCB) for RL with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-06 Heyang Zhao , Jiafan He , Quanquan Gu

Robust reinforcement learning (RL) is to find a policy that optimizes the worst-case performance over an uncertainty set of MDPs. In this paper, we focus on model-free robust RL, where the uncertainty set is defined to be centering at a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-29 Yue Wang , Shaofeng Zou

We study model-free Q-learning in finite-horizon episodic Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with stationary dynamics across episodes. We identify a central issue in nascent model-free posterior-sampling works: the reliance on delayed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-21 Sofia R. Miskala-Dinc , Aviva Prins

In this paper, a review of model-free reinforcement learning for learning of dynamical systems in uncertain environments has discussed. For this purpose, the Markov Decision Process (MDP) will be reviewed. Furthermore, some learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-21 Mehran Attar , Mohammadreza Dabirian

Designing a competent meta-reinforcement learning (meta-RL) algorithm in terms of data usage remains a central challenge to be tackled for its successful real-world applications. In this paper, we propose a sample-efficient meta-RL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-12 Jaeuk Shin , Giho Kim , Howon Lee , Joonho Han , Insoon Yang

Reinforcement learning algorithms are usually stated without theoretical guarantees regarding their performance. Recently, Jin, Yang, Wang, and Jordan (COLT 2020) showed a polynomial-time reinforcement learning algorithm (namely, LSVI-UCB)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-19 Philips George John , Arnab Bhattacharyya , Silviu Maniu , Dimitrios Myrisiotis , Zhenan Wu

Model-free reinforcement learning (RL) is inherently a reactive method, operating under the assumption that it starts with no prior knowledge of the system and entirely depends on trial-and-error for learning. This approach faces several…

Model-based Reinforcement Learning (MBRL) holds promise for data-efficiency by planning with model-generated experience in addition to learning with experience from the environment. However, in complex or changing environments, models in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-24 Esra'a Saleh , John D. Martin , Anna Koop , Arash Pourzarabi , Michael Bowling

Non-stationary environments are challenging for reinforcement learning algorithms. If the state transition and/or reward functions change based on latent factors, the agent is effectively tasked with optimizing a behavior that maximizes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-21 Lucas N. Alegre , Ana L. C. Bazzan , Bruno C. da Silva

Model-free Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms such as Q-learning [Watkins, Dayan 92] have been widely used in practice and can achieve human level performance in applications such as video games [Mnih et al. 15]. Recently, equipped with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-03 Zhao Song , Wen Sun

We initiate the study of dynamic regret minimization for goal-oriented reinforcement learning modeled by a non-stationary stochastic shortest path problem with changing cost and transition functions. We start by establishing a lower bound…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-27 Liyu Chen , Haipeng Luo

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an appealing paradigm for training intelligent agents, enabling policy acquisition from the agent's own autonomously acquired experience. However, the training process of RL is far from automatic, requiring…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-02-25 Zhao Yang , Thomas M. Moerland , Mike Preuss , Aske Plaat , Edward S. Hu

Learning-based control methods typically assume stationary system dynamics, an assumption often violated in real-world systems due to drift, wear, or changing operating conditions. We study reinforcement learning for control under…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-03 Klemens Iten , Bruce Lee , Chenhao Li , Lenart Treven , Andreas Krause , Bhavya Sukhija

In this paper, we leverage ideas from model-based control to address the sample efficiency problem of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. Accelerating learning is an active field of RL highly relevant in the context of time-varying…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-05-23 Ibrahim Ahmed , Marcos Quinones-Grueiro , Gautam Biswas

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful approach for robot learning. However, model-free RL (MFRL) requires a large number of environment interactions to learn successful control policies. This is due to the noisy RL training updates and…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-02-28 Maria Krinner , Elie Aljalbout , Angel Romero , Davide Scaramuzza

We study the Non-Stationary Reinforcement Learning (RL) under distribution shifts in both finite-horizon episodic and infinite-horizon discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). In the finite-horizon case, the transition functions may…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-31 Ha Manh Bui , Felix Parker , Kimia Ghobadi , Anqi Liu

We propose a black-box reduction that turns a certain reinforcement learning algorithm with optimal regret in a (near-)stationary environment into another algorithm with optimal dynamic regret in a non-stationary environment, importantly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-09-07 Chen-Yu Wei , Haipeng Luo

The reinforcement learning algorithms that focus on how to compute the gradient and choose next actions, are effectively improved the performance of the agents. However, these algorithms are environment-agnostic. This means that the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-28 Pouya Parsa , Raoof Zare Moayedi , Mohammad Bornosi , Mohammad Mahdi Bejani