Paper tackles efficient evaluation of natural stochastic policies in offline RL.
problem Efficiency issues in evaluating natural stochastic policies due to unknown evaluation policy.
method Derive efficiency bounds for tilting and modified treatment policies, propose nonparametric estimators.
result Proposed estimators attain efficiency bounds under lax conditions and enjoy partial double robustness.
New algorithms improve policy evaluation in reinforcement learning.
problem Off-policy stability and on-policy efficiency issues in policy evaluation.
method Introduced novel algorithms using oblique projection method.
result Demonstrated both off-policy stability and on-policy efficiency.
Improves reinforcement learning stability and efficiency.
problem Combining stability and efficiency in reinforcement learning.
method Combines on-policy stability with off-policy sample reuse.
result Demonstrates improved performance in both theory and practice.
Memory-efficient algorithm reduces variance in off-policy RL.
problem High variance in off-policy policy optimization.
method Memory-efficient, stochastically variance-reduced algorithm using off-policy samples.
result Empirically validated effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Recent work on policy learning from observational data has highlighted the importance of efficient policy evaluation and has proposed reductions to weighted (cost-sensitive) classification. But, efficient policy evaluation need not yield efficient estimation of policy parameters. We consider the estimation problem give…
New method efficiently evaluates policies using trajectory data.
problem Statistically efficient policy evaluation with limited data.
method Trajectory-based approach for policy evaluation.
result Improved sample complexity for policy evaluation.
Optimistic NPG improves policy optimization in online RL with efficient sample complexity.
problem Limited theoretical understanding of policy optimization, especially in online RL.
method Combines natural policy gradient with optimistic policy evaluation.
result Achieves optimal dimension dependence sample complexity for learning near-optimal policies.
New algorithm finds near-optimal policies efficiently in zero-sum games.
problem Lack of provable efficiency guarantees for policy optimization in zero-sum games.
method Policy optimization algorithm with function approximation.
result Proves efficient convergence to near-optimal policies with polynomial samples and iterations.
BREMEN optimizes policies offline with fewer data, achieving efficient deployment.
problem High cost of updating policies in real-world applications.
method Behavior-Regularized Model-ENsemble (BREMEN) algorithm for offline optimization.
result BREMEN achieves impressive deployment efficiency with 5-10 deployments, outperforming standard RL methods.
Deriving and applying Proximal Policy Optimization to GFlowNets for efficient training of discrete sampling policies
problem Training stochastic policies to sample from structured discrete probability distributions
method Deriving policy gradient algorithms for GFlowNets and applying Proximal Policy Optimization
result Improved convergence speed and data efficiency compared to standard GFlowNet training objectives
GPE algorithm optimizes nonparametric contextual bandits with efficient regret bounds.
problem Optimizing nonparametric contextual bandits with efficient regret bounds.
method Inspired by Policy Elimination, GPE uses oracle-efficient techniques for nonparametric classes with infinite VC-dimension.
result GPE is regret-optimal for policy classes with integrable entropy, and for larger entropy, it provides an ε-greedy algorithm with matching regret bounds. Paper finds efficient OPE estimator for multiple logging policies with minimum variance.
problem Finding optimal importance sampling weights for multiple logging policies with varying variances.
method Established efficiency bound under stratified sampling and proposed an estimator achieving this bound.
result Proposed estimator achieves minimum variance for any instance.
HO2 learns options from data efficiently, improving robot manipulation tasks.
problem Learning options from raw pixel inputs in 3D robot manipulation tasks.
method HO2 infers likely option choices and trains all policy components off-policy.
result HO2 outperforms existing methods on 3D robot manipulation tasks.
Improving sample efficiency has been a longstanding goal in reinforcement learning. This paper proposes VRMPO algorithm: a sample efficient policy gradient method with stochastic mirror descent. In VRMPO, a novel variance-reduced policy gradient estimator is presented to improve sample efficiency.…
New framework improves sample efficiency and robustness in RL with smooth policies.
problem Sample inefficiency and lack of robustness in deep reinforcement learning.
method SR^2L framework, smoothness-inducing regularization.
result Improved sample efficiency and robustness in both on-policy and off-policy RL algorithms.
Faster policy learning via continuous-time gradients.
problem Efficiently estimating policy gradients for continuous-time systems.
method Approximating continuous-time gradients directly, using adaptive discretization.
result More efficient policy gradient estimator leads to faster learning.
Responds to a statistical method for policy learning.
problem Improving policy learning efficiency.
method Optimal retargeting approach.
result Discussion and response to previous work.
New RL algorithms improve control tasks with data reuse.
problem Real-world control requires performance guarantees and data efficiency.
method Generalized Policy Improvement combining on-policy guarantees and sample reuse.
result Extensive experimental analysis shows benefits of new algorithms.
Proposes DGCN with trajectory sampling for data-efficient policy search in MBRL.
problem Improving data efficiency in model-based reinforcement learning.
method Combines trajectory sampling and DGCN for uncertainty propagation in probabilistic world models.
result Improves sample-efficiency over other uncertainty propagation methods and probabilistic models.
RPO uses past and future state-action info for better policy optimization.
problem Sample inefficiency in on-policy reinforcement learning methods.
method Reflective Policy Optimization (RPO) integrates past and future state-action info for policy improvement.
result RPO improves policy performance and contracts the solution space, leading to faster convergence.
ZOSPI improves RL policies with global value function exploitation.
problem Limited sample efficiency of PG algorithms in RL.
method Zeroth-order supervised policy improvement, leveraging global value function estimation.
result ZOSPI achieves competitive results with remarkable sample efficiency.
PPG separates policy and value function training phases for better reinforcement learning efficiency.
problem Challenges in traditional reinforcement learning methods for policy and value function optimization.
method Integrates Phasic Policy Gradient framework that splits policy and value function training into distinct phases.
result Significantly improves sample efficiency on Procgen Benchmark compared to PPO.
Optimizes biomolecular simulations by ranking adaptive sampling policies.
problem Efficiently sampling biomolecular systems to capture complex dynamical behaviors.
method Metric-driven ranking of adaptive sampling policies to identify the optimal policy for each round.
result Different adaptive sampling policies lead to faster convergence and improved sampling performance.
The goal of policy gradient approaches is to find a policy in a given class of policies which maximizes the expected return. Given a differentiable model of the policy, we want to apply a gradient-ascent technique to reach a local optimum. We mainly use gradient ascent, because it is theoretically well researched. The …
DBQPG improves policy gradient estimation with fewer samples.
problem Accurate policy gradient estimation with limited samples.
method Deep Bayesian Quadrature Policy Gradient (DBQPG).
result DBQPG provides more accurate and less variable gradient estimates.
Off-policy evaluation (OPE) in reinforcement learning is notoriously difficult in long- and infinite-horizon settings due to diminishing overlap between behavior and target policies. In this paper, we study the role of Markovian and time-invariant structure in efficient OPE. We first derive the efficiency bounds for OP…
Hybrid RL algorithm combines offline and online data for robust and efficient policy learning.
problem Combining robust on-policy methods with efficient offline data for hybrid RL.
method Integrates off-policy training on offline data into on-policy NPG framework.
result Achieves state-of-the-art theoretical guarantees and maintains on-policy NPG guarantees.
Lo-Hp decouples weight generation into local and global policies to improve flexibility and efficiency.
problem Over-coupling and long-horizon issues in current optimization methods.
method Hybrid-Policy Sub-Trajectory Balance objective.
result Learning local optimization policies addresses long-horizon issues and enhances global weight generation.
Efficient deep policy gradient method for continuous-time control problems.
problem Optimal control in continuous time with fine time discretization.
method Multi-scale deep policy gradient method with varying time discretization.
result Targeted efficiency in computational resources achieved through multi-scale approach.
This work analyzes the gap between off-policy and on-policy policy gradient methods and provides conditions to reduce this gap.
problem The gap between off-policy and on-policy policy gradient methods and conditions to reduce it.
method Theoretical analysis and empirical evidence of conditions to reduce the on-off gap.
result Conditions to reduce the on-off gap between off-policy and on-policy policy gradient methods.
DAC enhances exploration in reinforcement learning with entropy regularization.
problem Improving exploration efficiency in reinforcement learning.
method Sample-aware entropy regularization using replay buffer action distributions.
result DAC significantly outperforms existing algorithms in reinforcement learning tasks.
The paper tackles robust policy learning in MDPs using statistical methods.
problem Offline data-driven sequential decision making in MDPs.
method Evaluates policies using average rewards centered at policy-induced stationary distributions. Developed a statistically efficient method for estimating robust optimal policies.
result Established a rate-optimal regret bound up to a logarithmic factor.
While policy-based reinforcement learning (RL) achieves tremendous successes in practice, it is significantly less understood in theory, especially compared with value-based RL. In particular, it remains elusive how to design a provably efficient policy optimization algorithm that incorporates exploration. To bridge su…
POLAR learns efficient data acquisition policies using pretrained belief representations.
problem Challenges in learning effective policies for adaptive data acquisition.
method POLAR decouples representation learning from policy learning by leveraging pretrained predictive foundation models as belief-state encoders.
result POLAR outperforms state-of-the-art methods across diverse tasks while requiring fewer training samples.
WMPG reduces policy gradient variance using world models.
problem Reducing variance in policy gradient estimates.
method Trains a world model online to estimate policy gradients and uses imagined trajectories as a baseline.
result WMPG achieves better sample efficiency compared to AC and MAC.
Recent years have witnessed a tremendous improvement of deep reinforcement learning. However, a challenging problem is that an agent may suffer from inefficient exploration, particularly for on-policy methods. Previous exploration methods either rely on complex structure to estimate the novelty of states, or incur sens…
Deep neuroevolution and deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) algorithms are two popular approaches to policy search. The former is widely applicable and rather stable, but suffers from low sample efficiency. By contrast, the latter is more sample efficient, but the most sample efficient variants are also rather unstab…
We present a data-efficient reinforcement learning algorithm resistant to observation noise. Our method extends the highly data-efficient PILCO algorithm (Deisenroth & Rasmussen, 2011) into partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs) by considering the filtering process during policy evaluation. PILCO conduct…
Discuss new policy learning objectives and methods.
problem Improving policy learning efficiency and robustness.
method Introducing curvature considerations and calibration data methods.
result Efficient retargeting and distributionally robust policies.
New model learns better policies from expert demonstrations with higher efficiency.
problem Learning accurate policies from expert demonstrations with high efficiency.
method Generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL) model that learns f-divergence automatically. result Learns better policies with higher data efficiency in physics-based control tasks.
Recent advances in policy gradient methods and deep learning have demonstrated their applicability for complex reinforcement learning problems. However, the variance of the performance gradient estimates obtained from the simulation is often excessive, leading to poor sample efficiency. In this paper, we apply the stoc…
In real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL), noise from inherent stochasticity of environments is inevitable. However, current policy evaluation algorithms, which plays a key role in many RL algorithms, are either prone to noise or inefficient. To solve this issue, we introduce a novel policy evaluation a…
New method for estimating value of optimal policies in uncertain scenarios.
problem Inference for optimal policies when they are non-unique or nearly deterministic.
method Semiparametric efficiency bound, uniformly weighted estimator, NSAVE method.
result Proposes NSAVE method for robust inference in uncertain optimal policies.
Policy gradient methods in reinforcement learning update policy parameters by taking steps in the direction of an estimated gradient of policy value. In this paper, we consider the statistically efficient estimation of policy gradients from off-policy data, where the estimation is particularly non-trivial. We derive th…
Oracle-efficient algorithm for offline RL with partial data coverage.
problem Offline reinforcement learning with partial data coverage and constraints.
method PDOCRL, a primal-dual algorithm with decomposed linear-programming formulation.
result Near-optimal, near-feasible policy with \(\widetilde{\mathcal O}(ε^{-2})\) sample guarantee.
FPG uses fractional calculus for efficient reinforcement learning with long-term memory.
problem High variance and inefficient sampling in standard policy gradient methods for long-term temporal modeling.
method Fractional Policy Gradients (FPG) incorporating Caputo fractional derivatives for power-law temporal correlations.
result Achieves asymptotic variance reduction of order O(t^(-alpha)) and sample efficiency gains.
This paper explores how imperfect reward models can improve online RLHF.
problem Sample efficiency in online RLHF from imperfect reward models.
method Identifies policy coverability and proposes TPO algorithm for transfer learning.
result TPO algorithm improves sample efficiency compared to standard online learning.
Credit assignment in Meta-reinforcement learning (Meta-RL) is still poorly understood. Existing methods either neglect credit assignment to pre-adaptation behavior or implement it naively. This leads to poor sample-efficiency during meta-training as well as ineffective task identification strategies. This paper provide…