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Related papers: SACn: Soft Actor-Critic with n-step Returns

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In this work, we consider policy-based methods for solving the reinforcement learning problem, and establish the sample complexity guarantees. A policy-based algorithm typically consists of an actor and a critic. We consider using various…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-16 Zaiwei Chen , Siva Theja Maguluri

We present temporally abstract actor-critic (TAAC), a simple but effective off-policy RL algorithm that incorporates closed-loop temporal abstraction into the actor-critic framework. TAAC adds a second-stage binary policy to choose between…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-13 Haonan Yu , Wei Xu , Haichao Zhang

Asynchronous and parallel implementation of standard reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms is a key enabler of the tremendous success of modern RL. Among many asynchronous RL algorithms, arguably the most popular and effective one is the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-02 Han Shen , Kaiqing Zhang , Mingyi Hong , Tianyi Chen

Actor-critic algorithms learn an explicit policy (actor), and an accompanying value function (critic). The actor performs actions in the environment, while the critic evaluates the actor's current policy. However, despite their stability…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-02-08 Hélène Plisnier , Denis Steckelmacher , Diederik M. Roijers , Ann Nowé

Actor-critic (AC) is a powerful method for learning an optimal policy in reinforcement learning, where the critic uses algorithms, e.g., temporal difference (TD) learning with function approximation, to evaluate the current policy and the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-05 Yudan Wang , Yue Wang , Yi Zhou , Shaofeng Zou

Reinforcement learning methods carry a well known bias-variance trade-off in n-step algorithms for optimal control. Unfortunately, this has rarely been addressed in current research. This trade-off principle holds independent of the choice…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-10-18 Yitzhak Spielberg , Amos Azaria

We consider an improper reinforcement learning setting where a learner is given $M$ base controllers for an unknown Markov decision process, and wishes to combine them optimally to produce a potentially new controller that can outperform…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-20 Mohammadi Zaki , Avinash Mohan , Aditya Gopalan , Shie Mannor

Federated reinforcement learning (FRL) has emerged as a promising paradigm, enabling multiple agents to collaborate and learn a shared policy adaptable across heterogeneous environments. Among the various reinforcement learning (RL)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-25 Ye Zhu , Xiaowen Gong

Hidden confounders that influence both states and actions can bias policy learning in reinforcement learning (RL), leading to suboptimal or non-generalizable behavior. Most RL algorithms ignore this issue, learning policies from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-09 Thanh Vinh Vo , Young Lee , Haozhe Ma , Chien Lu , Tze-Yun Leong

In cooperative stochastic games multiple agents work towards learning joint optimal actions in an unknown environment to achieve a common goal. In many real-world applications, however, constraints are often imposed on the actions that can…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2020-07-14 Raghuram Bharadwaj Diddigi , Sai Koti Reddy Danda , Prabuchandran K. J. , Shalabh Bhatnagar

The optimal policy of a reinforcement learning problem is often discontinuous and non-smooth. I.e., for two states with similar representations, their optimal policies can be significantly different. In this case, representing the entire…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-10 Zhimin Hou , Kuangen Zhang , Yi Wan , Dongyu Li , Chenglong Fu , Haoyong Yu

Quantum optimal control in the presence of decoherence is difficult, particularly when not all Hamiltonian parameters are known precisely, as in quantum sensing applications. In this context, maximizing the sensitivity of the system is the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-01-19 Logan W. Cooke , Stefanie Czischek

Safe Reinforcement Learning (Safe RL) is one of the prevalently studied subcategories of trial-and-error-based methods with the intention to be deployed on real-world systems. In safe RL, the goal is to maximize reward performance while…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-16 Homayoun Honari , Amir Mehdi Soufi Enayati , Mehran Ghafarian Tamizi , Homayoun Najjaran

Off-policy learning exhibits greater instability when compared to on-policy learning in reinforcement learning (RL). The difference in probability distribution between the target policy ($\pi$) and the behavior policy (b) is a major cause…

Policy gradient methods are an attractive approach to multi-agent reinforcement learning problems due to their convergence properties and robustness in partially observable scenarios. However, there is a significant performance gap between…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-07 Bozhidar Vasilev , Tarun Gupta , Bei Peng , Shimon Whiteson

Autonomous parking is a key technology in modern autonomous driving systems, requiring high precision, strong adaptability, and efficiency in complex environments. This paper proposes a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) framework based on…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-05-01 Zheyu Zhang , Yutong Luo , Yongzhou Chen , Haopeng Zhao , Zhichao Ma , Hao Liu

Multistep returns, such as $n$-step returns and $\lambda$-returns, are commonly used to improve the sample efficiency of reinforcement learning (RL) methods. The variance of the multistep returns becomes the limiting factor in their length;…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-23 Brett Daley , Martha White , Marlos C. Machado

High-precision control tasks present substantial challenges for reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, frequently resulting in suboptimal performance attributed to network approximation inaccuracies and inadequate sample quality.These…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-05 Donghe Chen , Yubin Peng , Tengjie Zheng , Han Wang , Chaoran Qu , Lin Cheng

We propose a new algorithm, Mean Actor-Critic (MAC), for discrete-action continuous-state reinforcement learning. MAC is a policy gradient algorithm that uses the agent's explicit representation of all action values to estimate the gradient…

Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) is a crucial component for many large-scale robotic systems, where agents must plan their collision-free paths to their given goal positions. Recently, multi-agent reinforcement learning has been introduced…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-07-07 Qiushi Lin , Hang Ma