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Reinforcement learning is widely used in applications where one needs to perform sequential decisions while interacting with the environment. The problem becomes more challenging when the decision requirement includes satisfying some safety…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-15 Qinbo Bai , Amrit Singh Bedi , Mridul Agarwal , Alec Koppel , Vaneet Aggarwal

We provide a framework for accelerating reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms by heuristics constructed from domain knowledge or offline data. Tabula rasa RL algorithms require environment interactions or computation that scales with the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-23 Ching-An Cheng , Andrey Kolobov , Adith Swaminathan

Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms have shown tremendous success in simulation environments, but their application to real-world problems faces significant challenges, with safety being a major concern. In particular, enforcing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-19 Weiye Zhao , Rui Chen , Yifan Sun , Tianhao Wei , Changliu Liu

Safe and efficient assistive planning for visually impaired scenarios remains challenging, since existing methods struggle with multi-objective optimization, generalization, and interpretability. In response, this paper proposes a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-04-17 Yuting Zeng , Zhiwen Zheng , Jingya Wang , You Zhou , JiaLing Xiao , Yongbin Yu , Manping Fan , Bo Gong , Liyong Ren

In this paper, we propose a method for bounding the probability that a stochastic differential equation (SDE) system violates a safety specification over the infinite time horizon. SDEs are mathematical models of stochastic processes that…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2020-06-04 Shenghua Feng , Mingshuai Chen , Bai Xue , Sriram Sankaranarayanan , Naijun Zhan

Policy optimization is among the most popular and successful reinforcement learning algorithms, and there is increasing interest in understanding its theoretical guarantees. In this work, we initiate the study of policy optimization for the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-08 Liyu Chen , Haipeng Luo , Aviv Rosenberg

Goal-conditioned Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) is a promising approach for scaling up reinforcement learning (RL) techniques. However, it often suffers from training inefficiency as the action space of the high-level, i.e., the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-23 Tianren Zhang , Shangqi Guo , Tian Tan , Xiaolin Hu , Feng Chen

Safety is a fundamental challenge in reinforcement learning (RL), particularly in real-world applications such as autonomous driving, robotics, and healthcare. To address this, Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are commonly used…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-18 Chang Liu , Yunfan Li , Lin F. Yang

Recent advances in reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) and preference optimization have substantially improved the usability, coherence, and safety of large language models. However, recurring behaviors such as performative…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-13 William Parris

Several works have addressed the problem of incorporating constraints in the reinforcement learning (RL) framework, however majority of them can only guarantee the satisfaction of soft constraints. In this work, we address the problem of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-16 Kwangyeon Kim , Akshita Gupta , Hong-Cheol Choi , Inseok Hwang

While safe reinforcement learning (RL) holds great promise for many practical applications like robotics or autonomous cars, current approaches require specifying constraints in mathematical form. Such specifications demand domain…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2021-08-05 Tsung-Yen Yang , Michael Hu , Yinlam Chow , Peter J. Ramadge , Karthik Narasimhan

Recent advances in reinforcement learning (RL) enable its use on increasingly complex tasks, but the lack of formal safety guarantees still limits its application in safety-critical settings. A common practical approach is to augment the RL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Donggeon David Oh , Duy P. Nguyen , Haimin Hu , Jaime F. Fisac

In constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with adversarial rewards and constraints, a well-known impossibility result prevents any algorithm from attaining both sublinear regret and sublinear constraint violation, when competing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-27 Francesco Emanuele Stradi , Anna Lunghi , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

Strong worst-case performance bounds for episodic reinforcement learning exist but fortunately in practice RL algorithms perform much better than such bounds would predict. Algorithms and theory that provide strong problem-dependent bounds…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Andrea Zanette , Emma Brunskill

The paper describes a receding horizon control design framework for continuous-time stochastic nonlinear systems subject to probabilistic state constraints. The intention is to derive solutions that are implementable in real-time on…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2012-11-20 Shridhar K. Shah , Herbert G. Tanner , Chetan D. Pahlajani

We consider primal-dual-based reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) with non-stationary objectives and constraints, which plays a central role in ensuring the safety of RL in time-varying…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-22 Yuhao Ding , Javad Lavaei

Complex high-dimensional spaces with high Degree-of-Freedom and complicated action spaces, such as humanoid robots equipped with dexterous hands, pose significant challenges for reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, which need to wisely…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-02-25 Zifeng Zhuang , Diyuan Shi , Runze Suo , Xiao He , Hongyin Zhang , Ting Wang , Shangke Lyu , Donglin Wang

This paper examines reinforcement learning (RL) in infinite-horizon decision processes with almost-sure safety constraints, crucial for applications like autonomous systems, finance, and resource management. We propose a doubly-regularized…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-17 Pekka Malo , Lauri Viitasaari , Antti Suominen , Eeva Vilkkumaa , Olli Tahvonen

This paper presents a framework to tackle constrained combinatorial optimization problems using deep Reinforcement Learning (RL). To this end, we extend the Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) theory in order to deal with constraints in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-23 Ruben Solozabal , Josu Ceberio , Martin Takáč

Online reinforcement learning in non-episodic, finite-horizon MDPs remains underexplored and is challenged by the need to estimate returns to a fixed terminal time. Existing infinite-horizon methods, which often rely on discounted…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Jiamin Xu , Kyra Gan