Related papers: Optimistic Training and Convergence of Q-Learning …
This paper presents the concept of an adaptive safe padding that forces Reinforcement Learning (RL) to synthesise optimal control policies while ensuring safety during the learning process. Policies are synthesised to satisfy a goal,…
Offline reinforcement learning aims to learn an agent from pre-collected datasets, avoiding unsafe and inefficient real-time interaction. However, inevitable access to out-ofdistribution actions during the learning process introduces…
In temporal difference (TD) learning, off-policy sampling is known to be more practical than on-policy sampling, and by decoupling learning from data collection, it enables data reuse. It is known that policy evaluation (including…
We prove performance guarantees of two algorithms for approximating $Q^\star$ in batch reinforcement learning. Compared to classical iterative methods such as Fitted Q-Iteration---whose performance loss incurs quadratic dependence on…
This paper introduces new optimality-preserving operators on Q-functions. We first describe an operator for tabular representations, the consistent Bellman operator, which incorporates a notion of local policy consistency. We show that this…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has made significant strides in various domains, and policy gradient methods like Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) have gained popularity due to their balance in performance, training stability, and…
In this paper, we introduce Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations for Q-functions in continuous time optimal control problems with Lipschitz continuous controls. The standard Q-function used in reinforcement learning is shown to be the…
A temporally abstract action, or an option, is specified by a policy and a termination condition: the policy guides option behavior, and the termination condition roughly determines its length. Generally, learning with longer options (like…
The current paper studies the problem of agnostic $Q$-learning with function approximation in deterministic systems where the optimal $Q$-function is approximable by a function in the class $\mathcal{F}$ with approximation error $\delta \ge…
Reinforcement learning (RL) has seen significant research and application results but often requires large amounts of training data. This paper proposes two data-efficient off-policy RL methods that use parametrized Q-learning. In these…
We study the off-policy evaluation (OPE) problem in reinforcement learning with linear function approximation, which aims to estimate the value function of a target policy based on the offline data collected by a behavior policy. We propose…
One of the most natural approaches to reinforcement learning (RL) with function approximation is value iteration, which inductively generates approximations to the optimal value function by solving a sequence of regression problems. To…
We consider the problem of quantifying uncertainty over expected cumulative rewards in model-based reinforcement learning. In particular, we focus on characterizing the variance over values induced by a distribution over Markov decision…
In this paper, we present a framework to understand the convergence of commonly used Q-learning reinforcement learning algorithms in practice. Two salient features of such algorithms are: (i)~the Q-table is recursively updated using an…
We study reinforcement learning with linear function approximation and finite-memory approximations for partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs). We first present an algorithm for the value evaluation of finite-memory feedback…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has achieved tremendous success in recent years. However, the classical foundations of RL do not account for the risk sensitivity of the objective function, which is critical in various fields, including…
Precision medicine aims to tailor therapeutic decisions to individual patient characteristics. This objective is commonly formalized through dynamic treatment regimes, which use statistical and machine learning methods to derive sequential…
Off-policy reinforcement learning with eligibility traces is challenging because of the discrepancy between target policy and behavior policy. One common approach is to measure the difference between two policies in a probabilistic way,…
Reliable long-horizon value prediction is difficult in offline reinforcement learning because fitted value methods combine bootstrapping, function approximation, and distribution shift, while standard guarantees often require Bellman…
Temporal-difference and Q-learning play a key role in deep reinforcement learning, where they are empowered by expressive nonlinear function approximators such as neural networks. At the core of their empirical successes is the learned…