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Auteurs principaux: Guo, Xin, Lyu, Zijiu
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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Accès en ligne:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15165
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author Guo, Xin
Lyu, Zijiu
author_facet Guo, Xin
Lyu, Zijiu
contents This paper studies policy transfer, one of the well-known transfer learning techniques adopted in large language models, for continuous-time reinforcement learning problems. In the case of continuous-time linear-quadratic systems with Shannon's entropy regularization, we fully exploit the Gaussian structure of their optimal policy and the stability of their associated Riccati equations. In the general case where the system has possibly non-linear and bounded dynamics, the key technical component is the stability of diffusion SDEs which is established by invoking the rough path theory. Our work provides the first theoretical proof of policy transfer for continuous-time RL: an optimal policy learned for one RL problem can be used to initialize to search for a near-optimal policy for another closely related RL problem, while achieving (at least) the same rate of convergence for the original algorithm. As a byproduct of our analysis, we derive the stability of a concrete class of continuous-time score-based diffusion models via their connection with LQRs. To illustrate the benefit of policy transfer for RL, we propose a novel policy learning algorithm for continuous-time LQRs, which achieves global linear convergence and local super-linear convergence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_15165
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Policy Transfer for Continuous-Time Reinforcement Learning: A (Rough) Differential Equation Approach
Guo, Xin
Lyu, Zijiu
Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
This paper studies policy transfer, one of the well-known transfer learning techniques adopted in large language models, for continuous-time reinforcement learning problems. In the case of continuous-time linear-quadratic systems with Shannon's entropy regularization, we fully exploit the Gaussian structure of their optimal policy and the stability of their associated Riccati equations. In the general case where the system has possibly non-linear and bounded dynamics, the key technical component is the stability of diffusion SDEs which is established by invoking the rough path theory. Our work provides the first theoretical proof of policy transfer for continuous-time RL: an optimal policy learned for one RL problem can be used to initialize to search for a near-optimal policy for another closely related RL problem, while achieving (at least) the same rate of convergence for the original algorithm. As a byproduct of our analysis, we derive the stability of a concrete class of continuous-time score-based diffusion models via their connection with LQRs. To illustrate the benefit of policy transfer for RL, we propose a novel policy learning algorithm for continuous-time LQRs, which achieves global linear convergence and local super-linear convergence.
title Policy Transfer for Continuous-Time Reinforcement Learning: A (Rough) Differential Equation Approach
topic Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15165