Real-world tasks are often highly structured. Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) has attracted research interest as an approach for leveraging the hierarchical structure of a given task in reinforcement learning (RL). However, identifying the hierarchical policy structure that enhances the performance of RL is n…
MSOL learns hierarchical policies for multitask tasks with soft options.
problem Training hierarchical policies for multiple tasks with stability and flexibility.
method MSOL uses separate variational posteriors for each task, regularized by a shared prior, to avoid instabilities and fine-tune options for new tasks.
result MSOL significantly outperforms hierarchical and flat transfer-learning baselines.
Develops a new method for optimizing policies in hierarchical models.
problem Optimizing complex policies in hierarchical models.
method Applies second-order methods in the space of state-action paths.
result The natural path gradient method can be computed exactly and reflects state-space hierarchy.
Proposes a model for multi-agent reinforcement learning with hierarchical graph attention network.
problem Limited transferability of trained policies to new multi-agent tasks.
method Uses hierarchical graph attention network for representation learning and multi-agent actor-critic for policy learning.
result Demonstrates superior performance in mixed cooperative and competitive tasks compared to existing methods.
HiPPO adapts skills and higher-level policies together for better transfer in hierarchical RL.
problem Sub-optimality in skill transfer when lower-level skills are fixed.
method HiPPO: a novel hierarchical policy gradient method that trains all levels of the hierarchy jointly.
result Improved robustness of skills to environment changes through training time-abstractions.
Learning an optimal policy from a multi-modal reward function is a challenging problem in reinforcement learning (RL). Hierarchical RL (HRL) tackles this problem by learning a hierarchical policy, where multiple option policies are in charge of different strategies corresponding to modes of a reward function and a gati…
In this work, we provide theoretical guarantees for reward decomposition in deterministic MDPs. Reward decomposition is a special case of Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning, that allows one to learn many policies in parallel and combine them into a composite solution. Our approach builds on mapping this problem into a…
Variational inference improves hierarchical imitation learning of control programs.
problem Learning structured control policies from demonstrations.
method Variational inference for discovering hierarchical structure in observation-action traces.
result Variational inference leads to more efficient and generalized control policies.
The use of imitation learning to learn a single policy for a complex task that has multiple modes or hierarchical structure can be challenging. In fact, previous work has shown that when the modes are known, learning separate policies for each mode or sub-task can greatly improve the performance of imitation learning. …
A new reinforcement learning approach using competitive primitives that specialize and specialize based on information needs.
problem Complex environments require efficient and specialized decision-making.
method Decomposes policy into competitive primitives that decide based on information needs, regularized to use minimal information.
result Improves generalization over flat and hierarchical policies.
Hierarchical decoupling improves sample efficiency for complex robots.
problem Learning long-range behaviors on complex robots.
method Two-part policy: low-level imitation and high-level transfer, with KL regularization.
result Hierarchical transfer significantly improves zero-shot high-level transfer and stabilizes learning.
Option Encoder compresses reinforcement learning options into a policy basis.
problem Redundant options in reinforcement learning frameworks.
method Auto-encoder framework with constrained weights to discover a policy basis.
result Option Encoder reduces the number of options while maintaining performance.
In hierarchical reinforcement learning a major challenge is determining appropriate low-level policies. We propose an unsupervised learning scheme, based on asymmetric self-play from Sukhbaatar et al. (2018), that automatically learns a good representation of sub-goals in the environment and a low-level policy that can…
Proves EM algorithm guarantees for hierarchical imitation learning.
problem Learning hierarchical policies from expert demonstrations.
method Converts hierarchical imitation learning to latent variable model inference, analyzes EM algorithm.
result Proves EM algorithm converges to true parameter under regular conditions.
RHPO improves data-efficiency for hierarchical reinforcement learning.
problem High data requirements for general reinforcement learning algorithms in robotics.
method RHPO employs compositional inductive biases and task sharing mechanisms.
result RHPO enables stable and fast learning for complex domains with positive transfer.
A new benchmark task for evaluating policy learning in complex, high-dimensional action spaces.
problem Lack of a commonly accepted benchmark for evaluating policy learning in hierarchical tasks with high-dimensional action spaces.
method Proposed DinerDash Gym benchmark and Decomposed Policy Graph Modelling (DPGM) algorithm.
result DPGM achieves significant improvement over baselines and effectively injects domain knowledge.
Framework improves resilience in operations through joint long-term and short-term decision-making.
problem Resilient operations in global markets require adaptive decision rules.
method Developed a two-timescale hierarchical reinforcement learning framework.
result Framework increases mean profit by 9.2% under joint demand-supply shocks and 11.8% under prolonged shocks.
MGHRL learns to generate high-level meta strategies for new tasks.
problem Efficiency and generalization in meta-RL for wide task distributions.
method Generates high-level meta strategies over subgoals, leaving subtask learning independent.
result More efficient and generalized meta-learning from past experience.
In this work, we take a representation learning perspective on hierarchical reinforcement learning, where the problem of learning lower layers in a hierarchy is transformed into the problem of learning trajectory-level generative models. We show that we can learn continuous latent representations of trajectories, which…
Study uses machine learning to analyze state drug policies and reduce overdose deaths.
problem Epidemic opioid overdose rates and ineffective state-level policies.
method Hierarchical clustering of 138 binomial variables to generate policy bundles, then regression analysis.
result Balancing certain policies leads to reduced overdose deaths, but only after second year.
Unified pair trading approach using hierarchical reinforcement learning.
problem Decoupling pair selection and trading leads to limited performance.
method Hierarchical reinforcement learning framework for joint pair selection and trading.
result Unified approach outperforms existing methods on real-world stock data.
DSE learns transferable skills across changing dynamics and goals.
problem Learning transferable skills across different reinforcement learning tasks.
method Variational inference for multi-task reinforcement learning with shared and task-specific latent spaces.
result Policies can generalize to unseen dynamics and goals conditions.
MAVEN improves multi-agent exploration by hybridizing value and policy-based methods.
problem Exploration and suboptimality in complex multi-agent environments.
method MAVEN combines value and policy-based approaches with a latent space for hierarchical control.
result MAVEN achieves significant performance improvements on challenging multi-agent tasks.
New hierarchical RL agent learns to generalize in complex multi-agent games.
problem Current RL methods struggle to generalize to unseen opponents in multi-agent games.
method Proposed a hierarchical RL architecture grounded in game-theoretic structure.
result Hierarchical agent generalizes to unseen opponents, while baselines fail.
H-ReIL learns to drive safely in near-accident scenarios.
problem Driving safely in high-risk near-accident situations.
method Hierarchical RL and IL approach.
result High-level policy switches between low-level policies for safe driving.
We introduce Compositional Imitation Learning and Execution (CompILE): a framework for learning reusable, variable-length segments of hierarchically-structured behavior from demonstration data. CompILE uses a novel unsupervised, fully-differentiable sequence segmentation module to learn latent encodings of sequential d…
Improved cooperation between levels boosts reinforcement learning performance.
problem Training multi-level policies in hierarchical reinforcement learning.
method Modeling policy optimization as a multi-agent process and inducing cooperation between sub-policies.
result Inducing cooperation between sub-policies leads to stronger and more sample-efficient policies.
Method solves long-horizon robotic tasks via imitation and reinforcement learning.
problem Long-horizon robotic tasks with complex sequences of actions.
method Two-phase approach: imitation learning followed by reinforcement learning.
result Method can scale to challenging long-horizon tasks.
Policy-gradient method controls multiple non-cohesive targets.
problem Controlling multiple non-cohesive targets in a decentralized manner.
method Proximal Policy Optimization for target selection and driving.
result Effective control of non-cohesive targets without prior dynamics knowledge.
Building agents that can explore their environments intelligently is a challenging open problem. In this paper, we make a step towards understanding how a hierarchical design of the agent's policy can affect its exploration capabilities. First, we design EscapeRoom environments, where the agent must figure out how to n…
The paper introduces an adjacency constraint to improve goal-conditioned HRL.
problem Training inefficiency in goal-conditioned HRL due to large action space.
method Restricting the high-level action space to a k-step adjacent region of the current state.
result The adjacency constraint preserves optimal hierarchical policies and improves HRL performance.
HyPE improves sample efficiency in DRL by discovering objects and hierarchies of skills.
problem Poor sample efficiency in DRL methods, especially in complex tasks.
method HyPE algorithm that discovers objects and generates hypotheses about their controllability, learning a hierarchy of skills.
result HyPE learns high-scoring policies an order of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art methods.
Director learns hierarchical behaviors from pixels, outperforming exploration methods.
problem Challenges in learning long-term hierarchical behaviors from pixels.
method Directly learns hierarchical behaviors from pixels using a latent space world model.
result Director outperforms exploration methods on various tasks.
We address the problem of learning hierarchical deep neural network policies for reinforcement learning. In contrast to methods that explicitly restrict or cripple lower layers of a hierarchy to force them to use higher-level modulating signals, each layer in our framework is trained to directly solve the task, but acq…
HiDe learns hierarchical control for complex tasks by separating planning and control.
problem Solving long horizon control tasks with generalization to unseen scenarios.
method Functional decomposition of state-action spaces, RL-based planner, modular transfer of policy layers.
result Generalizes across unseen test environments and scales to longer horizons.
Two DRL policies collaborate to solve NP-hard routing problems.
problem Solving complex routing problems like TSP without expert knowledge.
method Learning Collaborative Policies (LCP) using seeder and reviser policies.
result Improves solution quality over single-policy DRL on various NP-hard routing problems.
Hierarchical RL simplifies exploration in RL tasks.
problem Why does hierarchy work well in RL?
method Evaluated hierarchical RL on various tasks, focusing on exploration benefits.
result Most benefits of hierarchy can be attributed to improved exploration.
Novel online algorithm for hierarchical imitation learning.
problem Scalability issue in reinforcement learning and options discovery.
method Online Baum-Welch algorithm for hierarchical imitation learning.
result The online algorithm outperforms the batch version in both discrete and continuous environments.
We study how to effectively leverage expert feedback to learn sequential decision-making policies. We focus on problems with sparse rewards and long time horizons, which typically pose significant challenges in reinforcement learning. We propose an algorithmic framework, called hierarchical guidance, that leverages the…
FEN model learns fairness and efficiency in multi-agent systems.
problem Fairness in multi-agent systems for stability and productivity.
method Hierarchical reinforcement learning model with fair-efficient reward and sub-policies.
result FEN model easily learns both fairness and efficiency in multi-agent scenarios.
Learning goal-directed behavior in environments with sparse feedback is a major challenge for reinforcement learning algorithms. The primary difficulty arises due to insufficient exploration, resulting in an agent being unable to learn robust value functions. Intrinsically motivated agents can explore new behavior for …
A new HRL algorithm learns and exploits multiple subgoals for faster exploration.
problem Sparse reward problem in reinforcement learning.
method Multi-goal HRL algorithm with Manager and Worker policies.
result Significantly improved exploration efficiency with reduced training time.
Free Random Projection enhances reinforcement learning by naturally incorporating hierarchical structure.
problem Improving reinforcement learning algorithms for better generalization and adaptability.
method Introduces Free Random Projection, a method that uses free probability theory to create random orthogonal matrices encoding hierarchical structure.
result Empirically shows consistent improvement in generalization over standard methods on multi-environment benchmarks.
Coagent policy gradient algorithms (CPGAs) are reinforcement learning algorithms for training a class of stochastic neural networks called coagent networks. In this work, we prove that CPGAs converge to locally optimal policies. Additionally, we extend prior theory to encompass asynchronous and recurrent coagent networ…
We explore Deep Reinforcement Learning in a parameterized action space. Specifically, we investigate how to achieve sample-efficient end-to-end training in these tasks. We propose a new compact architecture for the tasks where the parameter policy is conditioned on the output of the discrete action policy. We also prop…
Building systems that autonomously create temporal abstractions from data is a key challenge in scaling learning and planning in reinforcement learning. One popular approach for addressing this challenge is the options framework (Sutton et al., 1999). However, only recently in (Bacon et al., 2017) was a policy gradient…
Graph Pointer Networks and hierarchical reinforcement learning solve combinatorial optimization problems like TSP.
problem Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) with constraints.
method Graph Pointer Networks (GPNs) and hierarchical reinforcement learning.
result GPNs and hierarchical RL find optimal solutions for TSP and TSP with time windows.
Robotic table tennis learns efficient policies to return balls at 100Hz.
problem Developing efficient robotic table tennis strategies.
method Model-free reinforcement learning using evolutionary search on CNN-based policies.
result Robots can develop multi-modal styles (forehand and backhand) with 80% return rate.