Related papers: Value Mirror Descent for Reinforcement Learning
In this paper we provide faster algorithms for approximately solving discounted Markov Decision Processes in multiple parameter regimes. Given a discounted Markov Decision Process (DMDP) with $|S|$ states, $|A|$ actions, discount factor…
A wide range of applications arising in machine learning and signal processing can be cast as convex optimization problems. These problems are often ill-posed, i.e., the optimal solution lacks a desired property such as uniqueness or…
Constrained decision-making is essential for designing safe policies in real-world control systems, yet simulated environments often fail to capture real-world adversities. We consider the problem of learning a policy that will maximize the…
Inspired by dynamic programming, we propose Stochastic Virtual Gradient Descent (SVGD) algorithm where the Virtual Gradient is defined by computational graph and automatic differentiation. The method is computationally efficient and has…
We study the problem of learning optimal policies in finite-horizon Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) using low-rank reinforcement learning (RL) methods. In finite-horizon MDPs, the policies, and therefore the value functions (VFs) are not…
Gradient-regularized value learning methods improve sample efficiency by leveraging learned models of transition dynamics and rewards to estimate return gradients. However, existing approaches, such as MAGE, struggle in stochastic or noisy…
Policy Mirror Descent (PMD) has emerged as a unifying framework in reinforcement learning (RL) by linking policy gradient methods with a first-order optimization method known as mirror descent. At its core, PMD incorporates two key…
We study a stochastic optimization problem in which the sampling distribution depends on the decision variable, and the available samples are generated through an iterate-dependent Markov chain. Such settings arise naturally in problems…
Mirror descent is a well established tool for solving convex optimization problems with convex constraints. This article introduces continuous-time mirror descent dynamics for approximating optimal Markov controls for stochastic control…
We develop a generic policy gradient method with the global optimality guarantee for robust Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). While policy gradient methods are widely used for solving dynamic decision problems due to their scalable and…
This paper presents a comprehensive convergence analysis for the mirror descent (MD) method, a widely used algorithm in convex optimization. The key feature of this algorithm is that it provides a generalization of classical gradient-based…
Although well-established in general reinforcement learning (RL), value-based methods are rarely explored in constrained RL (CRL) for their incapability of finding policies that can randomize among multiple actions. To apply value-based…
In this paper, we propose a simple variant of the original stochastic variance reduction gradient (SVRG), where hereafter we refer to as the variance reduced stochastic gradient descent (VR-SGD). Different from the choices of the snapshot…
We study behavior-regularized reinforcement learning (RL), where regularization toward a reference distribution (the dataset in offline RL or the base model in LLM RL finetuning) is essential to prevent value over-optimization caused by…
Fast-converging algorithms are a contemporary requirement in reinforcement learning. In the context of linear function approximation, the magnitude of the smallest eigenvalue of the key matrix is a major factor reflecting the convergence…
Stochastic descent methods (of the gradient and mirror varieties) have become increasingly popular in optimization. In fact, it is now widely recognized that the success of deep learning is not only due to the special deep architecture of…
Reinforcement learning (RL) for exponential-utility optimization in discounted Markov decision processes (MDPs) lacks principled value-based algorithms. We address this gap in the fixed risk-aversion setting. Building on the Bellman-type…
In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) systems with general goals beyond a cumulative sum of rewards have gained traction, such as in constrained problems, exploration, and acting upon prior experiences. In this paper, we consider…
We consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for infinite-horizon Markov decision processes (MDPs). For this purpose, some variant of Stochastic Mirror Descent is proposed for convex programming problems with Lipschitz-continuous…
Markov Decision Processes are classically solved using Value Iteration and Policy Iteration algorithms. Recent interest in Reinforcement Learning has motivated the study of methods inspired by optimization, such as gradient ascent. Among…