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We investigate the problem of best policy identification in discounted linear Markov Decision Processes in the fixed confidence setting under a generative model. We first derive an instance-specific lower bound on the expected number of…
We propose a general framework for entropy-regularized average-reward reinforcement learning in Markov decision processes (MDPs). Our approach is based on extending the linear-programming formulation of policy optimization in MDPs to…
Deterministic Markov Decision Processes (DMDPs) are a mathematical framework for decision-making where the outcomes and future possible actions are deterministically determined by the current action taken. DMDPs can be viewed as a finite…
In many practical sequential decision-making problems, tracking the state of the environment incurs a sensing/communication/computation cost. In these settings, the agent's interaction with its environment includes the additional component…
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have shown great potential for cooperative detection and reconnaissance. However, collaborative AUV communications introduce risks of exposure. In adversarial environments, achieving efficient…
We study the Safe Reinforcement Learning (SRL) problem using the Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) formulation in which an agent aims to maximize the expected total reward subject to a safety constraint on the expected total value…
In mixed-autonomy traffic networks, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are required to make sequential routing decisions under uncertainty caused by dynamic and heterogeneous interactions with human-driven vehicles (HDVs). Early-stage greedy…
Controllable Markov chains describe the dynamics of sequential decision making tasks and are the central component in optimal control and reinforcement learning. In this work, we give the general form of an optimal policy for learning…
Achieving effective test-time scaling requires models to engage in In-Context Exploration -- the intrinsic ability to generate, verify, and refine multiple reasoning hypotheses within a single continuous context. Grounded in State Coverage…
Previous work has separately addressed different forms of action, state and action-state entropy regularization, pure exploration and space occupation. These problems have become extremely relevant for regularization, generalization,…
How do you incentivize self-interested agents to $\textit{explore}$ when they prefer to $\textit{exploit}$? We consider complex exploration problems, where each agent faces the same (but unknown) MDP. In contrast with traditional…
This paper describes the structure of optimal policies for infinite-state Markov Decision Processes with setwise continuous transition probabilities. The action sets may be noncompact. The objective criteria are either the expected total…
The process of discovery requires active exploration -- the act of collecting new and informative data. However, efficient autonomous exploration remains a major unsolved problem. The dominant paradigm addresses this challenge by using…
Safe exploration is crucial for the real-world application of reinforcement learning (RL). Previous works consider the safe exploration problem as Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP), where the policies are being optimized under…
We consider a class of optimization problems over stochastic variables where the algorithm can learn information about the value of any variable through a series of costly steps; we model this information acquisition process as a Markov…
In this paper, we consider the problem of controlling a partially observed Markov decision process (POMDP) in order to actively estimate its state trajectory over a fixed horizon with minimal uncertainty. We pose a novel active smoothing…
Many applications -- including power systems, robotics, and economics -- involve a dynamical system interacting with a stochastic and hard-to-model environment. We adopt a reinforcement learning approach to control such systems.…
We study the policy evaluation problem in an online multi-reward multi-policy discounted setting, where multiple reward functions must be evaluated simultaneously for different policies. We adopt an $(\epsilon,\delta)$-PAC perspective to…
We consider a mission framework in which two unmanned vehicles (UVs), a leader and a wingmate, are required to provide cooperative coverage of an environment while being within a short communication range. This framework finds applications…
We consider a finite number of $N$ statistically equal agents, each moving on a finite set of states according to a continuous-time Markov Decision Process (MDP). Transition intensities of the agents and generated rewards depend not only on…