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Autori principali: Schäfer, Georg, Krau, Tatjana, Rehrl, Jakob, Huber, Stefan, Hirlaender, Simon
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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Accesso online:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20442
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author Schäfer, Georg
Krau, Tatjana
Rehrl, Jakob
Huber, Stefan
Hirlaender, Simon
author_facet Schäfer, Georg
Krau, Tatjana
Rehrl, Jakob
Huber, Stefan
Hirlaender, Simon
contents Reinforcement Learning (RL) offers promising solutions for control tasks in industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPSs), yet its real-world adoption remains limited. This paper demonstrates how seemingly small but well-designed modifications to the RL problem formulation can substantially improve performance, stability, and sample efficiency. We identify and investigate key elements of RL problem formulation and show that these enhance both learning speed and final policy quality. Our experiments use a one-degree-of-freedom (1-DoF) helicopter testbed, the Quanser Aero~2, which features non-linear dynamics representative of many industrial settings. In simulation, the proposed problem design principles yield more reliable and efficient training, and we further validate these results by training the agent directly on physical hardware. The encouraging real-world outcomes highlight the potential of RL for ICPS, especially when careful attention is paid to the design principles of problem formulation. Overall, our study underscores the crucial role of thoughtful problem formulation in bridging the gap between RL research and the demands of real-world industrial systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_20442
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Crucial Role of Problem Formulation in Real-World Reinforcement Learning
Schäfer, Georg
Krau, Tatjana
Rehrl, Jakob
Huber, Stefan
Hirlaender, Simon
Systems and Control
Machine Learning
Reinforcement Learning (RL) offers promising solutions for control tasks in industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPSs), yet its real-world adoption remains limited. This paper demonstrates how seemingly small but well-designed modifications to the RL problem formulation can substantially improve performance, stability, and sample efficiency. We identify and investigate key elements of RL problem formulation and show that these enhance both learning speed and final policy quality. Our experiments use a one-degree-of-freedom (1-DoF) helicopter testbed, the Quanser Aero~2, which features non-linear dynamics representative of many industrial settings. In simulation, the proposed problem design principles yield more reliable and efficient training, and we further validate these results by training the agent directly on physical hardware. The encouraging real-world outcomes highlight the potential of RL for ICPS, especially when careful attention is paid to the design principles of problem formulation. Overall, our study underscores the crucial role of thoughtful problem formulation in bridging the gap between RL research and the demands of real-world industrial systems.
title The Crucial Role of Problem Formulation in Real-World Reinforcement Learning
topic Systems and Control
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20442