3 research outputs found
Batch Reinforcement Learning on the Industrial Benchmark: First Experiences
The Particle Swarm Optimization Policy (PSO-P) has been recently introduced
and proven to produce remarkable results on interacting with academic
reinforcement learning benchmarks in an off-policy, batch-based setting. To
further investigate the properties and feasibility on real-world applications,
this paper investigates PSO-P on the so-called Industrial Benchmark (IB), a
novel reinforcement learning (RL) benchmark that aims at being realistic by
including a variety of aspects found in industrial applications, like
continuous state and action spaces, a high dimensional, partially observable
state space, delayed effects, and complex stochasticity. The experimental
results of PSO-P on IB are compared to results of closed-form control policies
derived from the model-based Recurrent Control Neural Network (RCNN) and the
model-free Neural Fitted Q-Iteration (NFQ). Experiments show that PSO-P is not
only of interest for academic benchmarks, but also for real-world industrial
applications, since it also yielded the best performing policy in our IB
setting. Compared to other well established RL techniques, PSO-P produced
outstanding results in performance and robustness, requiring only a relatively
low amount of effort in finding adequate parameters or making complex design
decisions
Advancing the Applicability of Reinforcement Learning to Autonomous Control
ï»żMit dateneffizientem Reinforcement Learning (RL) konnten
beeindruckendeErgebnisse erzielt werden, z.B. fĂŒr die Regelung von
Gasturbinen. In derPraxis erfordert die Anwendung von RL jedoch noch viel
manuelle Arbeit, wasbisher RL fĂŒr die autonome Regelung untauglich
erscheinen lieĂ. Dievorliegende Arbeit adressiert einige der verbleibenden
Probleme, insbesonderein Bezug auf die ZuverlÀssigkeit der
Policy-Erstellung.
Es werden zunÀchst RL-Probleme mit diskreten Zustands- und
AktionsrĂ€umenbetrachtet. FĂŒr solche Probleme wird hĂ€ufig ein MDP aus
BeobachtungengeschÀtzt, um dann auf Basis dieser MDP-SchÀtzung eine Policy
abzuleiten. DieArbeit beschreibt, wie die SchÀtzer-Unsicherheit des MDP in
diePolicy-Erstellung eingebracht werden kann, um mit diesem Wissen das
Risikoeiner schlechten Policy aufgrund einer fehlerhaften MDP-SchÀtzung
zuverringern. AuĂerdem wird so effiziente Exploration sowie
Policy-Bewertungermöglicht.
AnschlieĂend wendet sich die Arbeit Problemen mit
kontinuierlichenZustandsrÀumen zu und konzentriert sich auf auf
RL-Verfahren, welche aufFitted Q-Iteration (FQI) basieren, insbesondere
Neural Fitted Q-Iteration(NFQ). Zwar ist NFQ sehr dateneffizient, jedoch
nicht so zuverlĂ€ssig, wie fĂŒrdie autonome Regelung nötig wĂ€re. Die Arbeit
schlÀgt die Verwendung vonEnsembles vor, um die ZuverlÀssigkeit von NFQ zu
erhöhen. Es werden eine Reihevon Möglichkeiten der Ensemble-Nutzung
entworfen und evaluiert. Bei allenbetrachteten RL-Problemen sorgen
Ensembles fĂŒr eine zuverlĂ€ssigere Erstellungguter Policies.
Im nÀchsten Schritt werden Möglichkeiten der Policy-Bewertung
beikontinuierlichen ZustandsrÀumen besprochen. Die Arbeit schlÀgt vor,
FittedPolicy Evaluation (FPE), eine Variante von FQI fĂŒr Policy Evaluation,
mitanderen Regressionsverfahren und/oder anderen DatensÀtzen zu
kombinieren, umein MaĂ fĂŒr die Policy-QualitĂ€t zu erhalten. Experimente
zeigen, dassExtra-Tree-FPE ein realistisches QualitĂ€tsmaĂ fĂŒr
NFQ-generierte Policies liefernkann.
SchlieĂlich kombiniert die Arbeit Ensembles und Policy-Bewertung, um mit
sichÀndernden RL-Problemen umzugehen. Der wesentliche Beitrag ist das
EvolvingEnsemble, dessen Policy sich langsam Àndert, indem alte,
untaugliche Policiesentfernt und neue hinzugefĂŒgt werden. Es zeigt sich,
dass das EvolvingEnsemble deutlich besser funktioniert als einfachere
AnsÀtze.With data-efficient reinforcement learning (RL) methods impressive
resultscould be achieved, e.g., in the context of gas turbine control.
However, inpractice the application of RL still requires much human
intervention, whichhinders the application of RL to autonomous control.
This thesis addressessome of the remaining problems, particularly regarding
the reliability of thepolicy generation process.
The thesis first discusses RL problems with discrete state and action
spaces.In that context, often an MDP is estimated from observations. It is
describedhow to incorporate the estimators' uncertainties into the policy
generationprocess. This information can then be used to reduce the risk of
obtaining apoor policy due to flawed MDP estimates. Moreover, it is
discussed how to usethe knowledge of uncertainty for efficient exploration
and the assessment ofpolicy quality without requiring the policy's
execution.
The thesis then moves on to continuous state problems and focuses on
methodsbased on fitted Q-iteration (FQI), particularly neural fitted
Q-iteration(NFQ). Although NFQ has proven to be very data-efficient, it is
not asreliable as required for autonomous control. The thesis proposes to
useensembles to increase reliability. Several ways of ensemble usage in an
NFQcontext are discussed and evaluated on a number of benchmark domains. It
showsthat in all considered domains with ensembles good policies can be
producedmore reliably.
Next, policy assessment in continuous domains is discussed. The
thesisproposes to use fitted policy evaluation (FPE), an adaptation of FQI
to policyevaluation, combined with a different function approximator and/or
differentdataset to obtain a measure for policy quality. Results of
experiments showthat extra-tree FPE, applied to policies generated by NFQ,
produces valuefunctions that can well be used to reason about the true
policy quality.
Finally, the thesis combines ensembles and policy assessment to derive
methodsthat can deal with changing environments. The major contribution is
theevolving ensemble. The policy of the evolving ensemble changes slowly as
newpolicies are added and old policies removed. It turns out that the
evolvingensemble approaches work considerably better than simpler
approaches likesingle policies learned with recent observations or simple
ensembles
The Recurrent Control Neural Network
Abstract. This paper presents our Recurrent Control Neural Network (RCNN), which is a model-based approach for a data-efficient modelling and control of reinforcement learning problems in discrete time. Its architecture is based on a recurrent neural network (RNN), which is extended by an additional control network. The latter has the particular task to learn the optimal policy. This method has the advantage that by using neural networks we can easily deal with high-dimensions or continuous state and action spaces. Furthermore we can profit from their high systemidentification and approximation quality. We show that our RCNN is able to learn a potentially optimal policy by testing it on two different settings of the mountain car problem.