Policy-based Primal-Dual Methods for Concave CMDP with Variance Reduction

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ying, Donghao, Guo, Mengzi Amy, Lee, Hyunin, Ding, Yuhao, Lavaei, Javad, Shen, Zuo-Jun Max
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author Ying, Donghao
Guo, Mengzi Amy
Lee, Hyunin
Ding, Yuhao
Lavaei, Javad
Shen, Zuo-Jun Max
author_facet Ying, Donghao
Guo, Mengzi Amy
Lee, Hyunin
Ding, Yuhao
Lavaei, Javad
Shen, Zuo-Jun Max
contents We study Concave Constrained Markov Decision Processes (Concave CMDPs) where both the objective and constraints are defined as concave functions of the state-action occupancy measure. We propose the Variance-Reduced Primal-Dual Policy Gradient Algorithm (VR-PDPG), which updates the primal variable via policy gradient ascent and the dual variable via projected sub-gradient descent. Despite the challenges posed by the loss of additivity structure and the nonconcave nature of the problem, we establish the global convergence of VR-PDPG by exploiting a form of hidden concavity. In the exact setting, we prove an $O(T^{-1/3})$ convergence rate for both the average optimality gap and constraint violation, which further improves to $O(T^{-1/2})$ under strong concavity of the objective in the occupancy measure. In the sample-based setting, we demonstrate that VR-PDPG achieves an $\widetilde{O}(ε^{-4})$ sample complexity for $ε$-global optimality. Moreover, by incorporating a diminishing pessimistic term into the constraint, we show that VR-PDPG can attain a zero constraint violation without compromising the convergence rate of the optimality gap. Finally, we validate the effectiveness of our methods through numerical experiments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2205_10715
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Policy-based Primal-Dual Methods for Concave CMDP with Variance Reduction
Ying, Donghao
Guo, Mengzi Amy
Lee, Hyunin
Ding, Yuhao
Lavaei, Javad
Shen, Zuo-Jun Max
Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
We study Concave Constrained Markov Decision Processes (Concave CMDPs) where both the objective and constraints are defined as concave functions of the state-action occupancy measure. We propose the Variance-Reduced Primal-Dual Policy Gradient Algorithm (VR-PDPG), which updates the primal variable via policy gradient ascent and the dual variable via projected sub-gradient descent. Despite the challenges posed by the loss of additivity structure and the nonconcave nature of the problem, we establish the global convergence of VR-PDPG by exploiting a form of hidden concavity. In the exact setting, we prove an $O(T^{-1/3})$ convergence rate for both the average optimality gap and constraint violation, which further improves to $O(T^{-1/2})$ under strong concavity of the objective in the occupancy measure. In the sample-based setting, we demonstrate that VR-PDPG achieves an $\widetilde{O}(ε^{-4})$ sample complexity for $ε$-global optimality. Moreover, by incorporating a diminishing pessimistic term into the constraint, we show that VR-PDPG can attain a zero constraint violation without compromising the convergence rate of the optimality gap. Finally, we validate the effectiveness of our methods through numerical experiments.
title Policy-based Primal-Dual Methods for Concave CMDP with Variance Reduction
topic Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.10715