Category Archives: Reinforcement Learning In Ai

Object oriented paradigm to improve transfer learning in RL, i.e., a sort of symbolic abstraction mechanism

March 1, 2024 10:05 ,

Ofir Marom, Benjamin Rosman, Transferable dynamics models for efficient object-oriented reinforcement learning, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Volume 174, 2024 DOI: 10.1016/j.artint.2024.104079.

The Reinforcement Learning (RL) framework offers a general paradigm for constructing autonomous agents that can make effective decisions when solving tasks. An important area of study within the field of RL is transfer learning, where an agent utilizes knowledge gained from solving previous tasks to solve a new task more efficiently. While the notion of transfer learning is conceptually appealing, in practice, not all RL representations are amenable to transfer learning. Moreover, much of the research on transfer learning in RL is purely empirical. Previous research has shown that object-oriented representations are suitable for the purposes of transfer learning with theoretical efficiency guarantees. Such representations leverage the notion of object classes to learn lifted rules that apply to grounded object instantiations. In this paper, we extend previous research on object-oriented representations and introduce two formalisms: the first is based on deictic predicates, and is used to learn a transferable transition dynamics model; the second is based on propositions, and is used to learn a transferable reward dynamics model. In addition, we extend previously introduced efficient learning algorithms for object-oriented representations to our proposed formalisms. Our frameworks are then combined into a single efficient algorithm that learns transferable transition and reward dynamics models across a domain of related tasks. We illustrate our proposed algorithm empirically on an extended version of the Taxi domain, as well as the more difficult Sokoban domain, showing the benefits of our approach with regards to efficient learning and transfer.

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Improving sample efficiency of RL through memory reconstruction

February 15, 2024 09:29 ,

Y. Kang et al., Sample Efficient Reinforcement Learning Using Graph-Based Memory Reconstruction, IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 751-762, Feb. 2024 DOI: 10.1109/TAI.2023.3268612.

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms typically require orders of magnitude more interactions than humans to learn effective policies. Research on memory in neuroscience suggests that humans’ learning efficiency benefits from associating their experiences and reconstructing potential events. Inspired by this finding, we introduce a human brainlike memory structure for agents and build a general learning framework based on this structure to improve the RL sampling efficiency. Since this framework is similar to the memory reconstruction process in psychology, we name the newly proposed RL framework as graph-based memory reconstruction (GBMR). In particular, GBMR first maintains an attribute graph on the agent’s memory and then retrieves its critical nodes to build and update potential paths among these nodes. This novel pipeline drives the RL agent to learn faster with its memory-enhanced value functions and reduces interactions with the environment by reconstructing its valuable paths. Extensive experimental analyses and evaluations in the grid maze and some challenging Atari environments demonstrate GBMRs superiority over traditional RL methods. We will release the source code and trained models to facilitate further studies in this research direction.

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Improving sample efficiency in actor-critic RL (A2C with NNs) through multimodal advantage function

January 25, 2024 12:29 ,

Jonghyeok Park, Soohee Han, Reinforcement learning with multimodal advantage function for accurate advantage estimation in robot learning, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Volume 126, Part C, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.engappai.2023.107019.

In this paper, we propose a reinforcement learning (RL) framework that uses a multimodal advantage function (MAF) to come close to the true advantage function, thereby achieving high returns. The MAF, which is constructed as a logarithm of a mixture of Gaussians policy (MoG-P) and trained by globally collected past experiences, directly assesses the complex true advantage function with its multi-modality and is expected to enhance the sample-efficiency of RL. To realize the expected enhanced learning performance with the proposed RL framework, two practical techniques are developed that include mode selection and rounding off of actions during the policy update process. Mode selection is conducted to sample the action around the most influential or weighted mode for efficient environment exploration. For fast policy updates, past actions are rounded off to discretized action values when calculating the multimodal advantage function. The proposed RL framework was validated using simulation environments and a real inverted pendulum system. The findings showed that the proposed framework can achieve a more sample-efficient performance or higher returns than other advantage-based RL benchmarks.

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Learning options in RL and using rewards adequately in that context

December 21, 2023 12:31 ,

Richard S. Sutton, Marlos C. Machado, G. Zacharias Holland, David Szepesvari, Finbarr Timbers, Brian Tanner, Adam White, Reward-respecting subtasks for model-based reinforcement learning, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 324, 2023, DOI: 10.1016/j.artint.2023.104001.

To achieve the ambitious goals of artificial intelligence, reinforcement learning must include planning with a model of the world that is abstract in state and time. Deep learning has made progress with state abstraction, but temporal abstraction has rarely been used, despite extensively developed theory based on the options framework. One reason for this is that the space of possible options is immense, and the methods previously proposed for option discovery do not take into account how the option models will be used in planning. Options are typically discovered by posing subsidiary tasks, such as reaching a bottleneck state or maximizing the cumulative sum of a sensory signal other than reward. Each subtask is solved to produce an option, and then a model of the option is learned and made available to the planning process. In most previous work, the subtasks ignore the reward on the original problem, whereas we propose subtasks that use the original reward plus a bonus based on a feature of the state at the time the option terminates. We show that option models obtained from such reward-respecting subtasks are much more likely to be useful in planning than eigenoptions, shortest path options based on bottleneck states, or reward-respecting options generated by the option-critic. Reward respecting subtasks strongly constrain the space of options and thereby also provide a partial solution to the problem of option discovery. Finally, we show how values, policies, options, and models can all be learned online and off-policy using standard algorithms and general value functions.

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Reward machines as reward specification method for RL and their automated learning

December 21, 2023 11:40 ,

Rodrigo Toro Icarte, Toryn Q. Klassen, Richard Valenzano, Margarita P. Castro, Ethan Waldie, Sheila A. McIlraith, Learning reward machines: A study in partially observable reinforcement learning, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 323, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.artint.2023.103989.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a machine learning paradigm wherein an artificial agent interacts with an environment with the purpose of learning behaviour that maximizes the expected cumulative reward it receives from the environment. Reward machines (RMs) provide a structured, automata-based representation of a reward function that enables an RL agent to decompose an RL problem into structured subproblems that can be efficiently learned via off-policy learning. Here we show that RMs can be learned from experience, instead of being specified by the user, and that the resulting problem decomposition can be used to effectively solve partially observable RL problems. We pose the task of learning RMs as a discrete optimization problem where the objective is to find an RM that decomposes the problem into a set of subproblems such that the combination of their optimal memoryless policies is an optimal policy for the original problem. We show the effectiveness of this approach on three partially observable domains, where it significantly outperforms A3C, PPO, and ACER, and discuss its advantages, limitations, and broader potential.

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A review of RL algorithms

December 21, 2023 11:15 ,

Ashish Kumar Shakya, Gopinatha Pillai, Sohom Chakrabarty, Reinforcement learning algorithms: A brief survey, Expert Systems with Applications, Volume 231, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.eswa.2023.120495.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a machine learning (ML) technique to learn sequential decision-making in complex problems. RL is inspired by trial-and-error based human/animal learning. It can learn an optimal policy autonomously with knowledge obtained by continuous interaction with a stochastic dynamical environment. Problems considered virtually impossible to solve, such as learning to play video games just from pixel information, are now successfully solved using deep reinforcement learning. Without human intervention, RL agents can surpass human performance in challenging tasks. This review gives a broad overview of RL, covering its fundamental principles, essential methods, and illustrative applications. The authors aim to develop an initial reference point for researchers commencing their research work in RL. In this review, the authors cover some fundamental model-free RL algorithms and pathbreaking function approximation-based deep RL (DRL) algorithms for complex uncertain tasks with continuous action and state spaces, making RL useful in various interdisciplinary fields. This article also provides a brief review of model-based and multi-agent RL approaches. Finally, some promising research directions for RL are briefly presented.

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They had to do it: Certified RL (through online reward shaping/definition)

December 21, 2023 10:04 ,

Hosein Hasanbeig, Daniel Kroening, Alessandro Abate, Certified reinforcement learning with logic guidance, Artificial Intelligence, Volume 322, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.artint.2023.103949.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a widely employed machine learning architecture that has been applied to a variety of control problems. However, applications in safety-critical domains require a systematic and formal approach to specifying requirements as tasks or goals. We propose a model-free RL algorithm that enables the use of Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) to formulate a goal for unknown continuous-state/action Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). The given LTL property is translated into a Limit-Deterministic Generalised B�chi Automaton (LDGBA), which is then used to shape a synchronous reward function on-the-fly. Under certain assumptions, the algorithm is guaranteed to synthesise a control policy whose traces satisfy the LTL specification with maximal probability.

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Meta-RL: given a distribution of tasks, learn a policy capable of adapting to any new task from the task distribution with as little data as possible

December 21, 2023 09:43 ,

Jacob Beck, Risto Vuorio, Evan Zheran Liu, Zheng Xiong, Luisa Zintgraf, Chelsea Finn, Shimon Whiteson, A Survey of Meta-Reinforcement Learning, arXiv:2301.08028 [cs.LG], 2023 DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2301.08028.

While deep reinforcement learning (RL) has fueled multiple high-profile successes in machine learning, it is held back from more widespread adoption by its often poor data efficiency and the limited generality of the policies it produces. A promising approach for alleviating these limitations is to cast the development of better RL algorithms as a machine learning problem itself in a process called meta-RL. Meta-RL is most commonly studied in a problem setting where, given a distribution of tasks, the goal is to learn a policy that is capable of adapting to any new task from the task distribution with as little data as possible. In this survey, we describe the meta-RL problem setting in detail as well as its major variations. We discuss how, at a high level, meta-RL research can be clustered based on the presence of a task distribution and the learning budget available for each individual task. Using these clusters, we then survey meta-RL algorithms and applications. We conclude by presenting the open problems on the path to making meta-RL part of the standard toolbox for a deep RL practitioner.

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Limiting human intervention in the design of RL solutions (now called “Automated RL”)

December 5, 2023 10:52 ,

Marco Mussi, Davide Lombarda, Alberto Maria Metelli, Francesco Trov�, Marcello Restelli, ARLO: A framework for Automated Reinforcement Learning, Expert Systems with Applications, Volume 224, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.eswa.2023.119883.

Automated Reinforcement Learning (AutoRL) is a relatively new area of research that is gaining increasing attention. The objective of AutoRL consists in easing the employment of Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques for the broader public by alleviating some of its main challenges, including data collection, algorithm selection, and hyper-parameter tuning. In this work, we propose a general and flexible framework, namely ARLO: Automated Reinforcement Learning Optimizer, to construct automated pipelines for AutoRL. Based on this, we propose a pipeline for offline and one for online RL, discussing the components, interaction, and highlighting the difference between the two settings. Furthermore, we provide a Python implementation of such pipelines, released as an open-source library. Our implementation is tested on an illustrative LQG domain and on classic MuJoCo environments, showing the ability to reach competitive performances requiring limited human intervention. We also showcase the full pipeline on a realistic dam environment, automatically performing the feature selection and the model generation tasks.

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Multi-task RL through common perceptions

December 5, 2023 10:50 ,

Jinling Meng, Fei Zhu, Seek for commonalities: Shared features extraction for multi-task reinforcement learning via adversarial training, Expert Systems with Applications, Volume 224, 2023 DOI: 10.1016/j.eswa.2023.119975.

Multi-task reinforcement learning is promising to alleviate the low sample efficiency and high computation cost of reinforcement learning algorithms. However, current methods mostly focus on unique features that are not conducive to the transfer between tasks. Moreover, they usually lack a balance mechanism among tasks, which often leads to the unnecessary occupation of training resources by tasks that have already been trained. To address the problems, a simple yet effective method referred to as Adaptive Experience buffer with Shared Features Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning (AESF-MTRL) is proposed. In AESF-MTRL, input observation of the environment is divided into shared features and unique features, which are extracted using different feature extractors. Unique features are extracted by simple gradient descent, while shared features are extracted using adversarial training, with an additional discriminator trained to ensure that the extracted features are indeed shared features. AESF-MTRL also maintains a reward stack to adjust the sampling ratio of trajectories from different tasks dynamically during the update period to balance the learning process of different tasks. Experiments on multiple robotics control environments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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