Maintaining accurate world knowledge in a complex and changing environment is a perennial problem for robots and other artificial intelligence systems. Our architecture for addressing this problem, called Horde, consists of a large number of independent reinforcement learning sub-agents, or demons. Each demon is responsible for answering a single predictive or goal-oriented question about the world, thereby contributing in a factored, modular way to the system's overall knowledge. The questions are in the form of a value function, but each demon has its own policy, reward function, termination function, and terminal-reward function unrelated to those of the base problem. Learning proceeds in parallel by all demons simultaneously so as to extract the maximal training information from whatever actions are taken by the system as a whole. Gradient-based temporal-difference learning methods are used to learn efficiently and reliably with function approximation in this off-policy setting. Horde runs in constant time and memory per time step, and is thus suitable for learning online in realtime applications such as robotics. We present results using Horde on a multi-sensored mobile robot to successfully learn goal-oriented behaviors and long-term predictions from offpolicy experience. Horde is a significant incremental step towards a real-time architecture for efficient learning of general knowledge from unsupervised sensorimotor interaction.

本文展示了单个机制如何通过直接从代理的原始传感器流流层构建层。这种机制，一般值函数（GVF）或“预测”，捕获高级，抽象知识，作为一组关于现有特征和知识的一组预测，其专门基于代理的低级感官和动作。因此，预测提供了将原始传感器数据组织成有用的抽象的表示 - 通过无限数量的层 - AI和认知科学的长寻求目标。本文的核心是一个详细的思想实验，提供了一个具体，逐步的正式说明，逐步的人工代理商如何从其原始的传感器体验中构建真实，有用的抽象知识。知识表示为关于代理人的观察到其行为后果的一组分层预测（预测）。该图示出了十二个独立的图层：最低的原始像素，触摸和力传感器以及少量动作;较高层次增加抽象，最终导致了对代理商世界的丰富知识，对应于门口，墙壁，房间和平面图。然后，我认为这种一般机制可以允许表示广泛的日常人类知识。

This paper surveys the eld of reinforcement learning from a computer-science perspective. It is written to be accessible to researchers familiar with machine learning. Both the historical basis of the eld and a broad selection of current work are summarized. Reinforcement learning is the problem faced by an agent that learns behavior through trial-and-error interactions with a dynamic environment. The work described here has a resemblance to work in psychology, but di ers considerably in the details and in the use of the word \reinforcement." The paper discusses central issues of reinforcement learning, including trading o exploration and exploitation, establishing the foundations of the eld via Markov decision theory, learning from delayed reinforcement, constructing empirical models to accelerate learning, making use of generalization and hierarchy, and coping with hidden state. It concludes with a survey of some implemented systems and an assessment of the practical utility of current methods for reinforcement learning.

本文研究了一种使用背景计划的新方法，用于基于模型的增强学习：混合（近似）动态编程更新和无模型更新，类似于DYNA体系结构。通过学习模型的背景计划通常比无模型替代方案（例如Double DQN）差，尽管前者使用了更多的内存和计算。基本问题是，学到的模型可能是不准确的，并且经常会产生无效的状态，尤其是在迭代许多步骤时。在本文中，我们通过将背景规划限制为一组（抽象）子目标并仅学习本地，子观念模型来避免这种限制。这种目标空间计划（GSP）方法更有效地是在计算上，自然地纳入了时间抽象，以进行更快的长胜压计划，并避免完全学习过渡动态。我们表明，在各种情况下，我们的GSP算法比双DQN基线要快得多。

The reinforcement learning paradigm is a popular way to address problems that have only limited environmental feedback, rather than correctly labeled examples, as is common in other machine learning contexts. While significant progress has been made to improve learning in a single task, the idea of transfer learning has only recently been applied to reinforcement learning tasks. The core idea of transfer is that experience gained in learning to perform one task can help improve learning performance in a related, but different, task. In this article we present a framework that classifies transfer learning methods in terms of their capabilities and goals, and then use it to survey the existing literature, as well as to suggest future directions for transfer learning work.

Batch reinforcement learning is a subfield of dynamic programming-based reinforcement learning. Originally defined as the task of learning the best possible policy from a fixed set of a priori-known transition samples, the (batch) algorithms developed in this field can be easily adapted to the classical online case, where the agent interacts with the environment while learning. Due to the efficient use of collected data and the stability of the learning process, this research area has attracted a lot of attention recently. In this chapter, we introduce the basic principles and the theory behind batch reinforcement learning, describe the most important algorithms, exemplarily discuss ongoing research within this field, and briefly survey real-world applications of batch reinforcement learning.

Value functions are a core component of reinforcement learning systems. The main idea is to to construct a single function approximator V (s; θ) that estimates the long-term reward from any state s, using parameters θ. In this paper we introduce universal value function approximators (UVFAs) V (s, g; θ) that generalise not just over states s but also over goals g. We develop an efficient technique for supervised learning of UVFAs, by factoring observed values into separate embedding vectors for state and goal, and then learning a mapping from s and g to these factored embedding vectors. We show how this technique may be incorporated into a reinforcement learning algorithm that updates the UVFA solely from observed rewards. Finally, we demonstrate that a UVFA can successfully generalise to previously unseen goals.

Deep reinforcement learning is poised to revolutionise the field of AI and represents a step towards building autonomous systems with a higher level understanding of the visual world. Currently, deep learning is enabling reinforcement learning to scale to problems that were previously intractable, such as learning to play video games directly from pixels. Deep reinforcement learning algorithms are also applied to robotics, allowing control policies for robots to be learned directly from camera inputs in the real world. In this survey, we begin with an introduction to the general field of reinforcement learning, then progress to the main streams of value-based and policybased methods. Our survey will cover central algorithms in deep reinforcement learning, including the deep Q-network, trust region policy optimisation, and asynchronous advantage actor-critic. In parallel, we highlight the unique advantages of deep neural networks, focusing on visual understanding via reinforcement learning. To conclude, we describe several current areas of research within the field.

从意外的外部扰动中恢复的能力是双模型运动的基本机动技能。有效的答复包括不仅可以恢复平衡并保持稳定性的能力，而且在平衡恢复物质不可行时，也可以保证安全的方式。对于与双式运动有关的机器人，例如人形机器人和辅助机器人设备，可帮助人类行走，设计能够提供这种稳定性和安全性的控制器可以防止机器人损坏或防止伤害相关的医疗费用。这是一个具有挑战性的任务，因为它涉及用触点产生高维，非线性和致动系统的高动态运动。尽管使用基于模型和优化方法的前进方面，但诸如广泛领域知识的要求，诸如较大的计算时间和有限的动态变化的鲁棒性仍然会使这个打开问题。在本文中，为了解决这些问题，我们开发基于学习的算法，能够为两种不同的机器人合成推送恢复控制政策：人形机器人和有助于双模型运动的辅助机器人设备。我们的工作可以分为两个密切相关的指示：1）学习人形机器人的安全下降和预防策略，2）使用机器人辅助装置学习人类的预防策略。为实现这一目标，我们介绍了一套深度加强学习（DRL）算法，以学习使用这些机器人时提高安全性的控制策略。

在此，我们描述了我们称为艾伯塔省计划的人工智能研究方法。艾伯塔省的计划是在我们在艾伯塔省的研究小组中以及全世界志趣相投的其他人中追求的。我们欢迎所有将加入我们的人参加这一追求的人。

With the development of deep representation learning, the domain of reinforcement learning (RL) has become a powerful learning framework now capable of learning complex policies in high dimensional environments. This review summarises deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms and provides a taxonomy of automated driving tasks where (D)RL methods have been employed, while addressing key computational challenges in real world deployment of autonomous driving agents. It also delineates adjacent domains such as behavior cloning, imitation learning, inverse reinforcement learning that are related but are not classical RL algorithms. The role of simulators in training agents, methods to validate, test and robustify existing solutions in RL are discussed.

Adequately assigning credit to actions for future outcomes based on their contributions is a long-standing open challenge in Reinforcement Learning. The assumptions of the most commonly used credit assignment method are disadvantageous in tasks where the effects of decisions are not immediately evident. Furthermore, this method can only evaluate actions that have been selected by the agent, making it highly inefficient. Still, no alternative methods have been widely adopted in the field. Hindsight Credit Assignment is a promising, but still unexplored candidate, which aims to solve the problems of both long-term and counterfactual credit assignment. In this thesis, we empirically investigate Hindsight Credit Assignment to identify its main benefits, and key points to improve. Then, we apply it to factored state representations, and in particular to state representations based on the causal structure of the environment. In this setting, we propose a variant of Hindsight Credit Assignment that effectively exploits a given causal structure. We show that our modification greatly decreases the workload of Hindsight Credit Assignment, making it more efficient and enabling it to outperform the baseline credit assignment method on various tasks. This opens the way to other methods based on given or learned causal structures.

To date, reinforcement learning has mostly been studied solving simple learning tasks. Reinforcement learning methods that have been studied so far typically converge slowly. The purpose of this work is thus twofold: 1) to investigate the utility of reinforcement learning in solving much more complicated learning tasks than previously studied, and 2) to investigate methods that will speed up reinforcement learning. This paper compares eight reinforcement learning frameworks: adaptive heuristic critic (AHC) learning due to Sutton, Q-learning due to Watkins, and three extensions to both basic methods for speeding up learning. The three extensions are experience replay, learning action models for planning, and teaching. The frameworks were investigated using connectionism as an approach to generalization. To evaluate the performance of different frameworks, a dynamic environment was used as a testbed. The enviromaaent is moderately complex and nondeterministic. This paper describes these frameworks and algorithms in detail and presents empirical evaluation of the frameworks.

马尔可夫决策过程通常用于不确定性下的顺序决策。然而，对于许多方面，从受约束或安全规范到任务和奖励结构中的各种时间（非Markovian）依赖性，需要扩展。为此，近年来，兴趣已经发展成为强化学习和时间逻辑的组合，即灵活的行为学习方法的组合，具有稳健的验证和保证。在本文中，我们描述了最近引入的常规决策过程的实验调查，该过程支持非马洛维亚奖励功能以及过渡职能。特别是，我们为常规决策过程，与在线，增量学习有关的算法扩展，对无模型和基于模型的解决方案算法的实证评估，以及以常规但非马尔维亚，网格世界的应用程序的算法扩展。

具有很多玩家的非合作和合作游戏具有许多应用程序，但是当玩家数量增加时，通常仍然很棘手。由Lasry和Lions以及Huang，Caines和Malham \'E引入的，平均野外运动会（MFGS）依靠平均场外近似值，以使玩家数量可以成长为无穷大。解决这些游戏的传统方法通常依赖于以完全了解模型的了解来求解部分或随机微分方程。最近，增强学习（RL）似乎有望解决复杂问题。通过组合MFGS和RL，我们希望在人口规模和环境复杂性方面能够大规模解决游戏。在这项调查中，我们回顾了有关学习MFG中NASH均衡的最新文献。我们首先确定最常见的设置（静态，固定和进化）。然后，我们为经典迭代方法（基于最佳响应计算或策略评估）提供了一个通用框架，以确切的方式解决MFG。在这些算法和与马尔可夫决策过程的联系的基础上，我们解释了如何使用RL以无模型的方式学习MFG解决方案。最后，我们在基准问题上介绍了数值插图，并以某些视角得出结论。

While reinforcement learning algorithms provide automated acquisition of optimal policies, practical application of such methods requires a number of design decisions, such as manually designing reward functions that not only define the task, but also provide sufficient shaping to accomplish it. In this paper, we view reinforcement learning as inferring policies that achieve desired outcomes, rather than as a problem of maximizing rewards. To solve this inference problem, we establish a novel variational inference formulation that allows us to derive a well-shaped reward function which can be learned directly from environment interactions. From the corresponding variational objective, we also derive a new probabilistic Bellman backup operator and use it to develop an off-policy algorithm to solve goal-directed tasks. We empirically demonstrate that this method eliminates the need to hand-craft reward functions for a suite of diverse manipulation and locomotion tasks and leads to effective goal-directed behaviors.

学习涉及时变和不断发展的系统动态的控制政策通常对主流强化学习算法构成了巨大的挑战。在大多数标准方法中，通常认为动作是一组刚性的，固定的选择，这些选择以预定义的方式顺序应用于状态空间。因此，在不诉诸于重大学习过程的情况下，学识渊博的政策缺乏适应动作集和动作的“行为”结果的能力。此外，标准行动表示和动作引起的状态过渡机制固有地限制了如何将强化学习应用于复杂的现实世界应用中，这主要是由于所得大的状态空间的棘手性以及缺乏概括的学术知识对国家空间未知部分的政策。本文提出了一个贝叶斯味的广义增强学习框架，首先建立参数动作模型的概念，以更好地应对不确定性和流体动作行为，然后将增强领域的概念作为物理启发的结构引入通过“极化体验颗粒颗粒建立） “维持在学习代理的工作记忆中。这些粒子有效地编码了以自组织方式随时间演变的动态学习体验。在强化领域之上，我们将进一步概括策略学习过程，以通过将过去的记忆视为具有隐式图结构来结合高级决策概念，在该结构中，过去的内存实例（或粒子）与决策之间的相似性相互联系。定义，因此，可以应用“关联记忆”原则来增强学习代理的世界模型。

Model-Based Reinforcement Learning (RL) is widely believed to have the potential to improve sample efficiency by allowing an agent to synthesize large amounts of imagined experience. Experience Replay (ER) can be considered a simple kind of model, which has proved extremely effective at improving the stability and efficiency of deep RL. In principle, a learned parametric model could improve on ER by generalizing from real experience to augment the dataset with additional plausible experience. However, owing to the many design choices involved in empirically successful algorithms, it can be very hard to establish where the benefits are actually coming from. Here, we provide theoretical and empirical insight into when, and how, we can expect data generated by a learned model to be useful. First, we provide a general theorem motivating how learning a model as an intermediate step can narrow down the set of possible value functions more than learning a value function directly from data using the Bellman equation. Second, we provide an illustrative example showing empirically how a similar effect occurs in a more concrete setting with neural network function approximation. Finally, we provide extensive experiments showing the benefit of model-based learning for online RL in environments with combinatorial complexity, but factored structure that allows a learned model to generalize. In these experiments, we take care to control for other factors in order to isolate, insofar as possible, the benefit of using experience generated by a learned model relative to ER alone.

Development of navigation algorithms is essential for the successful deployment of robots in rapidly changing hazardous environments for which prior knowledge of configuration is often limited or unavailable. Use of traditional path-planning algorithms, which are based on localization and require detailed obstacle maps with goal locations, is not possible. In this regard, vision-based algorithms hold great promise, as visual information can be readily acquired by a robot's onboard sensors and provides a much richer source of information from which deep neural networks can extract complex patterns. Deep reinforcement learning has been used to achieve vision-based robot navigation. However, the efficacy of these algorithms in environments with dynamic obstacles and high variation in the configuration space has not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper, we employ a deep Dyna-Q learning algorithm for room evacuation and obstacle avoidance in partially observable environments based on low-resolution raw image data from an onboard camera. We explore the performance of a robotic agent in environments containing no obstacles, convex obstacles, and concave obstacles, both static and dynamic. Obstacles and the exit are initialized in random positions at the start of each episode of reinforcement learning. Overall, we show that our algorithm and training approach can generalize learning for collision-free evacuation of environments with complex obstacle configurations. It is evident that the agent can navigate to a goal location while avoiding multiple static and dynamic obstacles, and can escape from a concave obstacle while searching for and navigating to the exit.

我们介绍了一种改进政策改进的方法，该方法在基于价值的强化学习（RL）的贪婪方法与基于模型的RL的典型计划方法之间进行了插值。新方法建立在几何视野模型（GHM，也称为伽马模型）的概念上，该模型对给定策略的折现状态验证分布进行了建模。我们表明，我们可以通过仔细的基本策略GHM的仔细组成，而无需任何其他学习，可以评估任何非马尔科夫策略，以固定的概率在一组基本马尔可夫策略之间切换。然后，我们可以将广义政策改进（GPI）应用于此类非马尔科夫政策的收集，以获得新的马尔可夫政策，通常将其表现优于其先驱。我们对这种方法提供了彻底的理论分析，开发了转移和标准RL的应用，并在经验上证明了其对标准GPI的有效性，对充满挑战的深度RL连续控制任务。我们还提供了GHM培训方法的分析，证明了关于先前提出的方法的新型收敛结果，并显示了如何在深度RL设置中稳定训练这些模型。