Sample-Efficient Reinforcement Learning with Temporal Logic Objectives: Leveraging the Task Specification to Guide Exploration

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kantaros, Yiannis, Wang, Jun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Kantaros, Yiannis
Wang, Jun
author_facet Kantaros, Yiannis
Wang, Jun
contents This paper addresses the problem of learning optimal control policies for systems with uncertain dynamics and high-level control objectives specified as Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formulas. Uncertainty is considered in the workspace structure and the outcomes of control decisions giving rise to an unknown Markov Decision Process (MDP). Existing reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for LTL tasks typically rely on exploring a product MDP state-space uniformly (using e.g., an $ε$-greedy policy) compromising sample-efficiency. This issue becomes more pronounced as the rewards get sparser and the MDP size or the task complexity increase. In this paper, we propose an accelerated RL algorithm that can learn control policies significantly faster than competitive approaches. Its sample-efficiency relies on a novel task-driven exploration strategy that biases exploration towards directions that may contribute to task satisfaction. We provide theoretical analysis and extensive comparative experiments demonstrating the sample-efficiency of the proposed method. The benefit of our method becomes more evident as the task complexity or the MDP size increases.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_12136
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sample-Efficient Reinforcement Learning with Temporal Logic Objectives: Leveraging the Task Specification to Guide Exploration
Kantaros, Yiannis
Wang, Jun
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
This paper addresses the problem of learning optimal control policies for systems with uncertain dynamics and high-level control objectives specified as Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formulas. Uncertainty is considered in the workspace structure and the outcomes of control decisions giving rise to an unknown Markov Decision Process (MDP). Existing reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for LTL tasks typically rely on exploring a product MDP state-space uniformly (using e.g., an $ε$-greedy policy) compromising sample-efficiency. This issue becomes more pronounced as the rewards get sparser and the MDP size or the task complexity increase. In this paper, we propose an accelerated RL algorithm that can learn control policies significantly faster than competitive approaches. Its sample-efficiency relies on a novel task-driven exploration strategy that biases exploration towards directions that may contribute to task satisfaction. We provide theoretical analysis and extensive comparative experiments demonstrating the sample-efficiency of the proposed method. The benefit of our method becomes more evident as the task complexity or the MDP size increases.
title Sample-Efficient Reinforcement Learning with Temporal Logic Objectives: Leveraging the Task Specification to Guide Exploration
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.12136