Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kotb, Mostafa, Weber, Cornelius, Hafez, Muhammad Burhan, Wermter, Stefan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18841
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909392195026944
author Kotb, Mostafa
Weber, Cornelius
Hafez, Muhammad Burhan
Wermter, Stefan
author_facet Kotb, Mostafa
Weber, Cornelius
Hafez, Muhammad Burhan
Wermter, Stefan
contents Inspired by the success of the Transformer architecture in natural language processing and computer vision, we investigate the use of Transformers in Reinforcement Learning (RL), specifically in modeling the environment's dynamics using Transformer Dynamics Models (TDMs). We evaluate the capabilities of TDMs for continuous control in real-time planning scenarios with Model Predictive Control (MPC). While Transformers excel in long-horizon prediction, their tokenization mechanism and autoregressive nature lead to costly planning over long horizons, especially as the environment's dimensionality increases. To alleviate this issue, we use a TDM for short-term planning, and learn an autoregressive discrete Q-function using a separate Q-Transformer (QT) model to estimate a long-term return beyond the short-horizon planning. Our proposed method, QT-TDM, integrates the robust predictive capabilities of Transformers as dynamics models with the efficacy of a model-free Q-Transformer to mitigate the computational burden associated with real-time planning. Experiments in diverse state-based continuous control tasks show that QT-TDM is superior in performance and sample efficiency compared to existing Transformer-based RL models while achieving fast and computationally efficient inference.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_18841
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle QT-TDM: Planning With Transformer Dynamics Model and Autoregressive Q-Learning
Kotb, Mostafa
Weber, Cornelius
Hafez, Muhammad Burhan
Wermter, Stefan
Machine Learning
Inspired by the success of the Transformer architecture in natural language processing and computer vision, we investigate the use of Transformers in Reinforcement Learning (RL), specifically in modeling the environment's dynamics using Transformer Dynamics Models (TDMs). We evaluate the capabilities of TDMs for continuous control in real-time planning scenarios with Model Predictive Control (MPC). While Transformers excel in long-horizon prediction, their tokenization mechanism and autoregressive nature lead to costly planning over long horizons, especially as the environment's dimensionality increases. To alleviate this issue, we use a TDM for short-term planning, and learn an autoregressive discrete Q-function using a separate Q-Transformer (QT) model to estimate a long-term return beyond the short-horizon planning. Our proposed method, QT-TDM, integrates the robust predictive capabilities of Transformers as dynamics models with the efficacy of a model-free Q-Transformer to mitigate the computational burden associated with real-time planning. Experiments in diverse state-based continuous control tasks show that QT-TDM is superior in performance and sample efficiency compared to existing Transformer-based RL models while achieving fast and computationally efficient inference.
title QT-TDM: Planning With Transformer Dynamics Model and Autoregressive Q-Learning
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18841