A Survey of Safe Reinforcement Learning and Constrained MDPs: A Technical Survey on Single-Agent and Multi-Agent Safety

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kushwaha, Ankita, Ravish, Kiran, Lamba, Preeti, Kumar, Pawan
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Kushwaha, Ankita
Ravish, Kiran
Lamba, Preeti
Kumar, Pawan
author_facet Kushwaha, Ankita
Ravish, Kiran
Lamba, Preeti
Kumar, Pawan
contents Safe Reinforcement Learning (SafeRL) is the subfield of reinforcement learning that explicitly deals with safety constraints during the learning and deployment of agents. This survey provides a mathematically rigorous overview of SafeRL formulations based on Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) and extensions to Multi-Agent Safe RL (SafeMARL). We review theoretical foundations of CMDPs, covering definitions, constrained optimization techniques, and fundamental theorems. We then summarize state-of-the-art algorithms in SafeRL for single agents, including policy gradient methods with safety guarantees and safe exploration strategies, as well as recent advances in SafeMARL for cooperative and competitive settings. Additionally, we propose five open research problems to advance the field, with three focusing on SafeMARL. Each problem is described with motivation, key challenges, and related prior work. This survey is intended as a technical guide for researchers interested in SafeRL and SafeMARL, highlighting key concepts, methods, and open future research directions.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17342
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Survey of Safe Reinforcement Learning and Constrained MDPs: A Technical Survey on Single-Agent and Multi-Agent Safety
Kushwaha, Ankita
Ravish, Kiran
Lamba, Preeti
Kumar, Pawan
Machine Learning
Safe Reinforcement Learning (SafeRL) is the subfield of reinforcement learning that explicitly deals with safety constraints during the learning and deployment of agents. This survey provides a mathematically rigorous overview of SafeRL formulations based on Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) and extensions to Multi-Agent Safe RL (SafeMARL). We review theoretical foundations of CMDPs, covering definitions, constrained optimization techniques, and fundamental theorems. We then summarize state-of-the-art algorithms in SafeRL for single agents, including policy gradient methods with safety guarantees and safe exploration strategies, as well as recent advances in SafeMARL for cooperative and competitive settings. Additionally, we propose five open research problems to advance the field, with three focusing on SafeMARL. Each problem is described with motivation, key challenges, and related prior work. This survey is intended as a technical guide for researchers interested in SafeRL and SafeMARL, highlighting key concepts, methods, and open future research directions.
title A Survey of Safe Reinforcement Learning and Constrained MDPs: A Technical Survey on Single-Agent and Multi-Agent Safety
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17342