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Main Authors: Liu, Huikang, Wiesemann, Wolfram, Yue, Man-Chung
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.02006
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author Liu, Huikang
Wiesemann, Wolfram
Yue, Man-Chung
author_facet Liu, Huikang
Wiesemann, Wolfram
Yue, Man-Chung
contents Factored Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a prominent paradigm within the artificial intelligence community for modeling and solving large-scale MDPs whose rewards and dynamics decompose into smaller, loosely interacting components. Through the use of dynamic Bayesian networks and context-specific independence, factored MDPs can achieve an exponential reduction in the state space of an MDP and thus scale to problem sizes that are beyond the reach of classical MDP algorithms. However, factored MDPs are typically solved using custom-designed algorithms that can require meticulous implementations and considerable fine-tuning. In this paper, we propose a mathematical programming approach to solving factored MDPs. In contrast to existing solution schemes, our approach leverages off-the-shelf solvers, which allows for a streamlined implementation and maintenance; it effectively capitalizes on the factored structure present in both state and action spaces; and it readily extends to the largely unexplored class of robust factored MDPs, whose transition kernels are only known to reside in a pre-specified ambiguity set. Our numerical experiments demonstrate the potential of our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_02006
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An MILP-Based Solution Scheme for Factored and Robust Factored Markov Decision Processes
Liu, Huikang
Wiesemann, Wolfram
Yue, Man-Chung
Optimization and Control
Factored Markov decision processes (MDPs) are a prominent paradigm within the artificial intelligence community for modeling and solving large-scale MDPs whose rewards and dynamics decompose into smaller, loosely interacting components. Through the use of dynamic Bayesian networks and context-specific independence, factored MDPs can achieve an exponential reduction in the state space of an MDP and thus scale to problem sizes that are beyond the reach of classical MDP algorithms. However, factored MDPs are typically solved using custom-designed algorithms that can require meticulous implementations and considerable fine-tuning. In this paper, we propose a mathematical programming approach to solving factored MDPs. In contrast to existing solution schemes, our approach leverages off-the-shelf solvers, which allows for a streamlined implementation and maintenance; it effectively capitalizes on the factored structure present in both state and action spaces; and it readily extends to the largely unexplored class of robust factored MDPs, whose transition kernels are only known to reside in a pre-specified ambiguity set. Our numerical experiments demonstrate the potential of our approach.
title An MILP-Based Solution Scheme for Factored and Robust Factored Markov Decision Processes
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.02006