Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Massiani, Pierre-François, von Rohr, Alexander, Haverbeck, Lukas, Trimpe, Sebastian
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10871
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866912778198974464
author Massiani, Pierre-François
von Rohr, Alexander
Haverbeck, Lukas
Trimpe, Sebastian
author_facet Massiani, Pierre-François
von Rohr, Alexander
Haverbeck, Lukas
Trimpe, Sebastian
contents Despite the many recent advances in reinforcement learning (RL), the question of learning policies that robustly satisfy state constraints under unknown disturbances remains open. In this paper, we offer a new perspective on achieving robust safety by analyzing the interplay between two well-established techniques in model-free RL: entropy regularization, and constraints penalization. We reveal empirically that entropy regularization in constrained RL inherently biases learning toward maximizing the number of future viable actions, thereby promoting constraints satisfaction robust to action noise. Furthermore, we show that by relaxing strict safety constraints through penalties, the constrained RL problem can be approximated arbitrarily closely by an unconstrained one and thus solved using standard model-free RL. This reformulation preserves both safety and optimality while empirically improving resilience to disturbances. Our results indicate that the connection between entropy regularization and robustness is a promising avenue for further empirical and theoretical investigation, as it enables robust safety in RL through simple reward shaping.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_10871
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Viability of Future Actions: Robust Safety in Reinforcement Learning via Entropy Regularization
Massiani, Pierre-François
von Rohr, Alexander
Haverbeck, Lukas
Trimpe, Sebastian
Machine Learning
Despite the many recent advances in reinforcement learning (RL), the question of learning policies that robustly satisfy state constraints under unknown disturbances remains open. In this paper, we offer a new perspective on achieving robust safety by analyzing the interplay between two well-established techniques in model-free RL: entropy regularization, and constraints penalization. We reveal empirically that entropy regularization in constrained RL inherently biases learning toward maximizing the number of future viable actions, thereby promoting constraints satisfaction robust to action noise. Furthermore, we show that by relaxing strict safety constraints through penalties, the constrained RL problem can be approximated arbitrarily closely by an unconstrained one and thus solved using standard model-free RL. This reformulation preserves both safety and optimality while empirically improving resilience to disturbances. Our results indicate that the connection between entropy regularization and robustness is a promising avenue for further empirical and theoretical investigation, as it enables robust safety in RL through simple reward shaping.
title Viability of Future Actions: Robust Safety in Reinforcement Learning via Entropy Regularization
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10871