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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Futuhi, Ehsan, Karimi, Shayan, Gao, Chao, Müller, Martin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.05225
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Table of Contents:
  • We consider deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) in the context of reinforcement learning with sparse rewards. To enhance exploration, we introduce a search procedure, \emph{$ε{t}$-greedy}, which generates exploratory options for exploring less-visited states. We prove that search using $εt$-greedy has polynomial sample complexity under mild MDP assumptions. To more efficiently use the information provided by rewarded transitions, we develop a new dual experience replay buffer framework, \emph{GDRB}, and implement \emph{longest n-step returns}. The resulting algorithm, \emph{ETGL-DDPG}, integrates all three techniques: \bm{$εt$}-greedy, \textbf{G}DRB, and \textbf{L}ongest $n$-step, into DDPG. We evaluate ETGL-DDPG on standard benchmarks and demonstrate that it outperforms DDPG, as well as other state-of-the-art methods, across all tested sparse-reward continuous environments. Ablation studies further highlight how each strategy individually enhances the performance of DDPG in this setting.