Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jang, Wonseo, Kim, Dongjae
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04815
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915480273420288
author Jang, Wonseo
Kim, Dongjae
author_facet Jang, Wonseo
Kim, Dongjae
contents Deep reinforcement learning (RL) models, despite their efficiency in learning an optimal policy in static environments, easily loses previously learned knowledge (i.e., catastrophic forgetting). It leads RL models to poor performance in continual reinforcement learning (CRL) scenarios. To address this, we present an arbitration control mechanism over an ensemble of RL agents. It is motivated by and closely aligned with how humans make decisions in a CRL context using an arbitration control of multiple RL agents in parallel as observed in the prefrontal cortex. We integrated two key ideas into our model: (1) an ensemble of RLs (i.e., DQN variants) explicitly trained to have diverse value functions and (2) an arbitration control that prioritizes agents with higher reliability (i.e., less error) in recent trials. We propose a framework for CRL, an Arbitration Control for an Ensemble of Diversified DQN variants (ACED-DQN). We demonstrate significant performance improvements in both static and continual environments, supported by empirical evidence showing the effectiveness of arbitration control over diversified DQNs during training. In this work, we introduced a framework that enables RL agents to continuously learn, with inspiration from the human brain.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_04815
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Arbitration Control for an Ensemble of Diversified DQN variants in Continual Reinforcement Learning
Jang, Wonseo
Kim, Dongjae
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
Deep reinforcement learning (RL) models, despite their efficiency in learning an optimal policy in static environments, easily loses previously learned knowledge (i.e., catastrophic forgetting). It leads RL models to poor performance in continual reinforcement learning (CRL) scenarios. To address this, we present an arbitration control mechanism over an ensemble of RL agents. It is motivated by and closely aligned with how humans make decisions in a CRL context using an arbitration control of multiple RL agents in parallel as observed in the prefrontal cortex. We integrated two key ideas into our model: (1) an ensemble of RLs (i.e., DQN variants) explicitly trained to have diverse value functions and (2) an arbitration control that prioritizes agents with higher reliability (i.e., less error) in recent trials. We propose a framework for CRL, an Arbitration Control for an Ensemble of Diversified DQN variants (ACED-DQN). We demonstrate significant performance improvements in both static and continual environments, supported by empirical evidence showing the effectiveness of arbitration control over diversified DQNs during training. In this work, we introduced a framework that enables RL agents to continuously learn, with inspiration from the human brain.
title An Arbitration Control for an Ensemble of Diversified DQN variants in Continual Reinforcement Learning
topic Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04815