Deep Double Q-learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Nagarajan, Prabhat, White, Martha, Machado, Marlos C.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Nagarajan, Prabhat
White, Martha
Machado, Marlos C.
author_facet Nagarajan, Prabhat
White, Martha
Machado, Marlos C.
contents Double Q-learning is a classical control algorithm that mitigates the maximization bias of Q-learning. To do so, it explicitly trains two independent action-value functions and uses them to decouple action-selection and action-evaluation when computing bootstrap targets. Double DQN adapts target bootstrap decoupling to deep reinforcement learning (RL), but explicitly trains only a single action-value function and does not fully decouple its estimators. Consequently, the two estimators remain correlated, and overestimation persists. In this paper, we introduce Deep Double Q-learning (DDQL), a deep RL algorithm that explicitly trains two Q-functions through Double Q-learning. DDQL stabilizes training through a combination of techniques, including lower replay ratios, longer target network update intervals, and shared layers. Across 57 Atari 2600 games, DDQL improves aggregate performance over Double DQN, outperforming it on 47 games while further reducing overestimation. In addition, we study key design choices when adapting Double Q-learning to deep RL, including the network architecture, replay ratio, and minibatch sampling strategies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_00275
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deep Double Q-learning
Nagarajan, Prabhat
White, Martha
Machado, Marlos C.
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Double Q-learning is a classical control algorithm that mitigates the maximization bias of Q-learning. To do so, it explicitly trains two independent action-value functions and uses them to decouple action-selection and action-evaluation when computing bootstrap targets. Double DQN adapts target bootstrap decoupling to deep reinforcement learning (RL), but explicitly trains only a single action-value function and does not fully decouple its estimators. Consequently, the two estimators remain correlated, and overestimation persists. In this paper, we introduce Deep Double Q-learning (DDQL), a deep RL algorithm that explicitly trains two Q-functions through Double Q-learning. DDQL stabilizes training through a combination of techniques, including lower replay ratios, longer target network update intervals, and shared layers. Across 57 Atari 2600 games, DDQL improves aggregate performance over Double DQN, outperforming it on 47 games while further reducing overestimation. In addition, we study key design choices when adapting Double Q-learning to deep RL, including the network architecture, replay ratio, and minibatch sampling strategies.
title Deep Double Q-learning
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00275