Memory Sequence Length of Data Sampling Impacts the Adaptation of Meta-Reinforcement Learning Agents

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Menglong, Qian, Fuyuan, Liu, Quanying
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913394536218624
author Zhang, Menglong
Qian, Fuyuan
Liu, Quanying
author_facet Zhang, Menglong
Qian, Fuyuan
Liu, Quanying
contents Fast adaptation to new tasks is extremely important for embodied agents in the real world. Meta-reinforcement learning (meta-RL) has emerged as an effective method to enable fast adaptation in unknown environments. Compared to on-policy meta-RL algorithms, off-policy algorithms rely heavily on efficient data sampling strategies to extract and represent the historical trajectories. However, little is known about how different data sampling methods impact the ability of meta-RL agents to represent unknown environments. Here, we investigate the impact of data sampling strategies on the exploration and adaptability of meta-RL agents. Specifically, we conducted experiments with two types of off-policy meta-RL algorithms based on Thompson sampling and Bayes-optimality theories in continuous control tasks within the MuJoCo environment and sparse reward navigation tasks. Our analysis revealed the long-memory and short-memory sequence sampling strategies affect the representation and adaptive capabilities of meta-RL agents. We found that the algorithm based on Bayes-optimality theory exhibited more robust and better adaptability than the algorithm based on Thompson sampling, highlighting the importance of appropriate data sampling strategies for the agent's representation of an unknown environment, especially in the case of sparse rewards.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_12359
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Memory Sequence Length of Data Sampling Impacts the Adaptation of Meta-Reinforcement Learning Agents
Zhang, Menglong
Qian, Fuyuan
Liu, Quanying
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Fast adaptation to new tasks is extremely important for embodied agents in the real world. Meta-reinforcement learning (meta-RL) has emerged as an effective method to enable fast adaptation in unknown environments. Compared to on-policy meta-RL algorithms, off-policy algorithms rely heavily on efficient data sampling strategies to extract and represent the historical trajectories. However, little is known about how different data sampling methods impact the ability of meta-RL agents to represent unknown environments. Here, we investigate the impact of data sampling strategies on the exploration and adaptability of meta-RL agents. Specifically, we conducted experiments with two types of off-policy meta-RL algorithms based on Thompson sampling and Bayes-optimality theories in continuous control tasks within the MuJoCo environment and sparse reward navigation tasks. Our analysis revealed the long-memory and short-memory sequence sampling strategies affect the representation and adaptive capabilities of meta-RL agents. We found that the algorithm based on Bayes-optimality theory exhibited more robust and better adaptability than the algorithm based on Thompson sampling, highlighting the importance of appropriate data sampling strategies for the agent's representation of an unknown environment, especially in the case of sparse rewards.
title Memory Sequence Length of Data Sampling Impacts the Adaptation of Meta-Reinforcement Learning Agents
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12359