Boosting Maximum Entropy Reinforcement Learning via One-Step Flow Matching

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Hauptverfasser: Li, Zeqiao, Wang, Yijing, Wang, Haoyu, Li, Zheng, Zuo, Zhiqiang
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Li, Zeqiao
Wang, Yijing
Wang, Haoyu
Li, Zheng
Zuo, Zhiqiang
author_facet Li, Zeqiao
Wang, Yijing
Wang, Haoyu
Li, Zheng
Zuo, Zhiqiang
contents Diffusion policies are expressive yet incur high inference latency. Flow Matching (FM) enables one-step generation, but integrating it into Maximum Entropy Reinforcement Learning (MaxEnt RL) is challenging: the optimal policy is an intractable energy-based distribution, and the efficient log-likelihood estimation required to balance exploration and exploitation suffers from severe discretization bias. We propose \textbf{F}low-based \textbf{L}og-likelihood-\textbf{A}ware \textbf{M}aximum \textbf{E}ntropy RL (\textbf{FLAME}), a principled framework that addresses these challenges. First, we derive a Q-Reweighted FM objective that bypasses partition function estimation via importance reweighting. Second, we design a decoupled entropy estimator that rigorously corrects bias, which enables efficient exploration and brings the policy closer to the optimal MaxEnt policy. Third, we integrate the MeanFlow formulation to achieve expressive and efficient one-step control. Empirical results on MuJoCo show that FLAME outperforms Gaussian baselines and matches multi-step diffusion policies with significantly lower inference cost. Code is available at https://github.com/lzqw/FLAME.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_01606
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Boosting Maximum Entropy Reinforcement Learning via One-Step Flow Matching
Li, Zeqiao
Wang, Yijing
Wang, Haoyu
Li, Zheng
Zuo, Zhiqiang
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Diffusion policies are expressive yet incur high inference latency. Flow Matching (FM) enables one-step generation, but integrating it into Maximum Entropy Reinforcement Learning (MaxEnt RL) is challenging: the optimal policy is an intractable energy-based distribution, and the efficient log-likelihood estimation required to balance exploration and exploitation suffers from severe discretization bias. We propose \textbf{F}low-based \textbf{L}og-likelihood-\textbf{A}ware \textbf{M}aximum \textbf{E}ntropy RL (\textbf{FLAME}), a principled framework that addresses these challenges. First, we derive a Q-Reweighted FM objective that bypasses partition function estimation via importance reweighting. Second, we design a decoupled entropy estimator that rigorously corrects bias, which enables efficient exploration and brings the policy closer to the optimal MaxEnt policy. Third, we integrate the MeanFlow formulation to achieve expressive and efficient one-step control. Empirical results on MuJoCo show that FLAME outperforms Gaussian baselines and matches multi-step diffusion policies with significantly lower inference cost. Code is available at https://github.com/lzqw/FLAME.
title Boosting Maximum Entropy Reinforcement Learning via One-Step Flow Matching
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01606