Leveraging Analytic Gradients in Provably Safe Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Walter, Tim, Markgraf, Hannah, Külz, Jonathan, Althoff, Matthias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Walter, Tim
Markgraf, Hannah
Külz, Jonathan
Althoff, Matthias
author_facet Walter, Tim
Markgraf, Hannah
Külz, Jonathan
Althoff, Matthias
contents The deployment of autonomous robots in safety-critical applications requires safety guarantees. Provably safe reinforcement learning is an active field of research that aims to provide such guarantees using safeguards. These safeguards should be integrated during training to reduce the sim-to-real gap. While there are several approaches for safeguarding sampling-based reinforcement learning, analytic gradient-based reinforcement learning often achieves superior performance from fewer environment interactions. However, there is no safeguarding approach for this learning paradigm yet. Our work addresses this gap by developing the first effective safeguard for analytic gradient-based reinforcement learning. We analyse existing, differentiable safeguards, adapt them through modified mappings and gradient formulations, and integrate them into a state-of-the-art learning algorithm and a differentiable simulation. Using numerical experiments on three control tasks, we evaluate how different safeguards affect learning. The results demonstrate safeguarded training without compromising performance. Additional visuals are provided at timwalter.github.io/safe-agb-rl.github.io.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_01665
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Leveraging Analytic Gradients in Provably Safe Reinforcement Learning
Walter, Tim
Markgraf, Hannah
Külz, Jonathan
Althoff, Matthias
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
The deployment of autonomous robots in safety-critical applications requires safety guarantees. Provably safe reinforcement learning is an active field of research that aims to provide such guarantees using safeguards. These safeguards should be integrated during training to reduce the sim-to-real gap. While there are several approaches for safeguarding sampling-based reinforcement learning, analytic gradient-based reinforcement learning often achieves superior performance from fewer environment interactions. However, there is no safeguarding approach for this learning paradigm yet. Our work addresses this gap by developing the first effective safeguard for analytic gradient-based reinforcement learning. We analyse existing, differentiable safeguards, adapt them through modified mappings and gradient formulations, and integrate them into a state-of-the-art learning algorithm and a differentiable simulation. Using numerical experiments on three control tasks, we evaluate how different safeguards affect learning. The results demonstrate safeguarded training without compromising performance. Additional visuals are provided at timwalter.github.io/safe-agb-rl.github.io.
title Leveraging Analytic Gradients in Provably Safe Reinforcement Learning
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01665