Improved Robustness of Deep Reinforcement Learning for Control of Time-Varying Systems by Bounded Extremum Seeking

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Saxena, Shaifalee, Williams, Alan, Fierro, Rafael, Scheinker, Alexander
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Saxena, Shaifalee
Williams, Alan
Fierro, Rafael
Scheinker, Alexander
author_facet Saxena, Shaifalee
Williams, Alan
Fierro, Rafael
Scheinker, Alexander
contents In this paper, we study the use of robust model independent bounded extremum seeking (ES) feedback control to improve the robustness of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) controllers for a class of nonlinear time-varying systems. DRL has the potential to learn from large datasets to quickly control or optimize the outputs of many-parameter systems, but its performance degrades catastrophically when the system model changes rapidly over time. Bounded ES can handle time-varying systems with unknown control directions, but its convergence speed slows down as the number of tuned parameters increases and, like all local adaptive methods, it can get stuck in local minima. We demonstrate that together, DRL and bounded ES result in a hybrid controller whose performance exceeds the sum of its parts with DRL taking advantage of historical data to learn how to quickly control a many-parameter system to a desired setpoint while bounded ES ensures its robustness to time variations. We present a numerical study of a general time-varying system and a combined ES-DRL controller for automatic tuning of the Low Energy Beam Transport section at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center linear particle accelerator.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_02490
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Improved Robustness of Deep Reinforcement Learning for Control of Time-Varying Systems by Bounded Extremum Seeking
Saxena, Shaifalee
Williams, Alan
Fierro, Rafael
Scheinker, Alexander
Machine Learning
Systems and Control
In this paper, we study the use of robust model independent bounded extremum seeking (ES) feedback control to improve the robustness of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) controllers for a class of nonlinear time-varying systems. DRL has the potential to learn from large datasets to quickly control or optimize the outputs of many-parameter systems, but its performance degrades catastrophically when the system model changes rapidly over time. Bounded ES can handle time-varying systems with unknown control directions, but its convergence speed slows down as the number of tuned parameters increases and, like all local adaptive methods, it can get stuck in local minima. We demonstrate that together, DRL and bounded ES result in a hybrid controller whose performance exceeds the sum of its parts with DRL taking advantage of historical data to learn how to quickly control a many-parameter system to a desired setpoint while bounded ES ensures its robustness to time variations. We present a numerical study of a general time-varying system and a combined ES-DRL controller for automatic tuning of the Low Energy Beam Transport section at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center linear particle accelerator.
title Improved Robustness of Deep Reinforcement Learning for Control of Time-Varying Systems by Bounded Extremum Seeking
topic Machine Learning
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02490