ParMod: A Parallel and Modular Framework for Learning Non-Markovian Tasks

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Miao, Ruixuan, Lu, Xu, Tian, Cong, Yu, Bin, Duan, Zhenhua
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912159778209792
author Miao, Ruixuan
Lu, Xu
Tian, Cong
Yu, Bin
Duan, Zhenhua
author_facet Miao, Ruixuan
Lu, Xu
Tian, Cong
Yu, Bin
Duan, Zhenhua
contents The commonly used Reinforcement Learning (RL) model, MDPs (Markov Decision Processes), has a basic premise that rewards depend on the current state and action only. However, many real-world tasks are non-Markovian, which has long-term memory and dependency. The reward sparseness problem is further amplified in non-Markovian scenarios. Hence learning a non-Markovian task (NMT) is inherently more difficult than learning a Markovian one. In this paper, we propose a novel \textbf{Par}allel and \textbf{Mod}ular RL framework, ParMod, specifically for learning NMTs specified by temporal logic. With the aid of formal techniques, the NMT is modulaized into a series of sub-tasks based on the automaton structure (equivalent to its temporal logic counterpart). On this basis, sub-tasks will be trained by a group of agents in a parallel fashion, with one agent handling one sub-task. Besides parallel training, the core of ParMod lies in: a flexible classification method for modularizing the NMT, and an effective reward shaping method for improving the sample efficiency. A comprehensive evaluation is conducted on several challenging benchmark problems with respect to various metrics. The experimental results show that ParMod achieves superior performance over other relevant studies. Our work thus provides a good synergy among RL, NMT and temporal logic.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_12700
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ParMod: A Parallel and Modular Framework for Learning Non-Markovian Tasks
Miao, Ruixuan
Lu, Xu
Tian, Cong
Yu, Bin
Duan, Zhenhua
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
The commonly used Reinforcement Learning (RL) model, MDPs (Markov Decision Processes), has a basic premise that rewards depend on the current state and action only. However, many real-world tasks are non-Markovian, which has long-term memory and dependency. The reward sparseness problem is further amplified in non-Markovian scenarios. Hence learning a non-Markovian task (NMT) is inherently more difficult than learning a Markovian one. In this paper, we propose a novel \textbf{Par}allel and \textbf{Mod}ular RL framework, ParMod, specifically for learning NMTs specified by temporal logic. With the aid of formal techniques, the NMT is modulaized into a series of sub-tasks based on the automaton structure (equivalent to its temporal logic counterpart). On this basis, sub-tasks will be trained by a group of agents in a parallel fashion, with one agent handling one sub-task. Besides parallel training, the core of ParMod lies in: a flexible classification method for modularizing the NMT, and an effective reward shaping method for improving the sample efficiency. A comprehensive evaluation is conducted on several challenging benchmark problems with respect to various metrics. The experimental results show that ParMod achieves superior performance over other relevant studies. Our work thus provides a good synergy among RL, NMT and temporal logic.
title ParMod: A Parallel and Modular Framework for Learning Non-Markovian Tasks
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.12700