Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mignacco, Chiara, Jonckheere, Matthieu, Stoltz, Gilles
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06515
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914080295485440
author Mignacco, Chiara
Jonckheere, Matthieu
Stoltz, Gilles
author_facet Mignacco, Chiara
Jonckheere, Matthieu
Stoltz, Gilles
contents Online matching problems arise in many complex systems, from cloud services and online marketplaces to organ exchange networks, where timely, principled decisions are critical for maintaining high system performance. Traditional heuristics in these settings are simple and interpretable but typically tailored to specific operating regimes, which can lead to inefficiencies when conditions change. We propose a reinforcement learning (RL) approach that learns to orchestrate a set of such expert policies, leveraging their complementary strengths in a data-driven, adaptive manner. Building on the Adv2 framework (Jonckheere et al., 2024), our method combines expert decisions through advantage-based weight updates and extends naturally to settings where only estimated value functions are available. We establish both expectation and high-probability regret guarantees and derive a novel finite-time bias bound for temporal-difference learning, enabling reliable advantage estimation even under constant step size and non-stationary dynamics. To support scalability, we introduce a neural actor-critic architecture that generalizes across large state spaces while preserving interpretability. Simulations on stochastic matching models, including an organ exchange scenario, show that the orchestrated policy converges faster and yields higher system level efficiency than both individual experts and conventional RL baselines. Our results highlight how structured, adaptive learning can improve the modeling and management of complex resource allocation and decision-making processes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_06515
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Online Matching via Reinforcement Learning: An Expert Policy Orchestration Strategy
Mignacco, Chiara
Jonckheere, Matthieu
Stoltz, Gilles
Machine Learning
Online matching problems arise in many complex systems, from cloud services and online marketplaces to organ exchange networks, where timely, principled decisions are critical for maintaining high system performance. Traditional heuristics in these settings are simple and interpretable but typically tailored to specific operating regimes, which can lead to inefficiencies when conditions change. We propose a reinforcement learning (RL) approach that learns to orchestrate a set of such expert policies, leveraging their complementary strengths in a data-driven, adaptive manner. Building on the Adv2 framework (Jonckheere et al., 2024), our method combines expert decisions through advantage-based weight updates and extends naturally to settings where only estimated value functions are available. We establish both expectation and high-probability regret guarantees and derive a novel finite-time bias bound for temporal-difference learning, enabling reliable advantage estimation even under constant step size and non-stationary dynamics. To support scalability, we introduce a neural actor-critic architecture that generalizes across large state spaces while preserving interpretability. Simulations on stochastic matching models, including an organ exchange scenario, show that the orchestrated policy converges faster and yields higher system level efficiency than both individual experts and conventional RL baselines. Our results highlight how structured, adaptive learning can improve the modeling and management of complex resource allocation and decision-making processes.
title Online Matching via Reinforcement Learning: An Expert Policy Orchestration Strategy
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06515