Deep Policy Gradient Methods Without Batch Updates, Target Networks, or Replay Buffers

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Vasan, Gautham, Elsayed, Mohamed, Azimi, Alireza, He, Jiamin, Shariar, Fahim, Bellinger, Colin, White, Martha, Mahmood, A. Rupam
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Vasan, Gautham
Elsayed, Mohamed
Azimi, Alireza
He, Jiamin
Shariar, Fahim
Bellinger, Colin
White, Martha
Mahmood, A. Rupam
author_facet Vasan, Gautham
Elsayed, Mohamed
Azimi, Alireza
He, Jiamin
Shariar, Fahim
Bellinger, Colin
White, Martha
Mahmood, A. Rupam
contents Modern deep policy gradient methods achieve effective performance on simulated robotic tasks, but they all require large replay buffers or expensive batch updates, or both, making them incompatible for real systems with resource-limited computers. We show that these methods fail catastrophically when limited to small replay buffers or during incremental learning, where updates only use the most recent sample without batch updates or a replay buffer. We propose a novel incremental deep policy gradient method -- Action Value Gradient (AVG) and a set of normalization and scaling techniques to address the challenges of instability in incremental learning. On robotic simulation benchmarks, we show that AVG is the only incremental method that learns effectively, often achieving final performance comparable to batch policy gradient methods. This advancement enabled us to show for the first time effective deep reinforcement learning with real robots using only incremental updates, employing a robotic manipulator and a mobile robot.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_15370
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deep Policy Gradient Methods Without Batch Updates, Target Networks, or Replay Buffers
Vasan, Gautham
Elsayed, Mohamed
Azimi, Alireza
He, Jiamin
Shariar, Fahim
Bellinger, Colin
White, Martha
Mahmood, A. Rupam
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
Systems and Control
Modern deep policy gradient methods achieve effective performance on simulated robotic tasks, but they all require large replay buffers or expensive batch updates, or both, making them incompatible for real systems with resource-limited computers. We show that these methods fail catastrophically when limited to small replay buffers or during incremental learning, where updates only use the most recent sample without batch updates or a replay buffer. We propose a novel incremental deep policy gradient method -- Action Value Gradient (AVG) and a set of normalization and scaling techniques to address the challenges of instability in incremental learning. On robotic simulation benchmarks, we show that AVG is the only incremental method that learns effectively, often achieving final performance comparable to batch policy gradient methods. This advancement enabled us to show for the first time effective deep reinforcement learning with real robots using only incremental updates, employing a robotic manipulator and a mobile robot.
title Deep Policy Gradient Methods Without Batch Updates, Target Networks, or Replay Buffers
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.15370