Enhancing Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients on Continuous Control Tasks with Decoupled Prioritized Experience Replay

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lorasdagi, Mehmet Efe, Cicek, Dogan Can, Mutlu, Furkan Burak, Kozat, Suleyman Serdar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lorasdagi, Mehmet Efe
Cicek, Dogan Can
Mutlu, Furkan Burak
Kozat, Suleyman Serdar
author_facet Lorasdagi, Mehmet Efe
Cicek, Dogan Can
Mutlu, Furkan Burak
Kozat, Suleyman Serdar
contents Background: Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient-based reinforcement learning algorithms utilize Actor-Critic architectures, where both networks are typically trained using identical batches of replayed transitions. However, the learning objectives and update dynamics of the Actor and Critic differ, raising concerns about whether uniform transition usage is optimal. Objectives: We aim to improve the performance of deep deterministic policy gradient algorithms by decoupling the transition batches used to train the Actor and the Critic. Our goal is to design an experience replay mechanism that provides appropriate learning signals to each component by using separate, tailored batches. Methods: We introduce Decoupled Prioritized Experience Replay (DPER), a novel approach that allows independent sampling of transition batches for the Actor and the Critic. DPER can be integrated into any off-policy deep reinforcement learning algorithm that operates in continuous control domains. We combine DPER with the state-of-the-art Twin Delayed DDPG algorithm and evaluate its performance across standard continuous control benchmarks. Results: DPER outperforms conventional experience replay strategies such as vanilla experience replay and prioritized experience replay in multiple MuJoCo tasks from the OpenAI Gym suite. Conclusions: Our findings show that decoupling experience replay for Actor and Critic networks can enhance training dynamics and final policy quality. DPER offers a generalizable mechanism that enhances performance for a wide class of actor-critic off-policy reinforcement learning algorithms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_05320
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients on Continuous Control Tasks with Decoupled Prioritized Experience Replay
Lorasdagi, Mehmet Efe
Cicek, Dogan Can
Mutlu, Furkan Burak
Kozat, Suleyman Serdar
Machine Learning
Background: Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient-based reinforcement learning algorithms utilize Actor-Critic architectures, where both networks are typically trained using identical batches of replayed transitions. However, the learning objectives and update dynamics of the Actor and Critic differ, raising concerns about whether uniform transition usage is optimal. Objectives: We aim to improve the performance of deep deterministic policy gradient algorithms by decoupling the transition batches used to train the Actor and the Critic. Our goal is to design an experience replay mechanism that provides appropriate learning signals to each component by using separate, tailored batches. Methods: We introduce Decoupled Prioritized Experience Replay (DPER), a novel approach that allows independent sampling of transition batches for the Actor and the Critic. DPER can be integrated into any off-policy deep reinforcement learning algorithm that operates in continuous control domains. We combine DPER with the state-of-the-art Twin Delayed DDPG algorithm and evaluate its performance across standard continuous control benchmarks. Results: DPER outperforms conventional experience replay strategies such as vanilla experience replay and prioritized experience replay in multiple MuJoCo tasks from the OpenAI Gym suite. Conclusions: Our findings show that decoupling experience replay for Actor and Critic networks can enhance training dynamics and final policy quality. DPER offers a generalizable mechanism that enhances performance for a wide class of actor-critic off-policy reinforcement learning algorithms.
title Enhancing Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients on Continuous Control Tasks with Decoupled Prioritized Experience Replay
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.05320