arXiv:2410.21704cs.LGcs.SY2024-10被引 14

提出通用定理,让强化学习在复杂噪声下也能快速收敛。

Stochastic Approximation with Unbounded Markovian Noise: A General-Purpose Theorem

  • 用李雅普诺夫函数分析非线性随机逼近的漂移条件
  • 首次实现高维分布式优化的有限时间收敛,复杂度最优为1/ε²
  • 适用于网络资源分配、库存系统等实际场景

针对网络资源分配和库存系统等工程应用,研究无限状态空间与无界奖励函数下的平均回报强化学习。现有工作在演员-评论家框架下建立了有限样本界,但依赖于评论家的误差保证。本文研究基于线性函数近似的时序差分(TD)学习,建立了最优复杂度为 𝒪(1/ε²) 的有限时间界。该结果基于一个通用的非线性随机逼近定理:若构造满足特定漂移条件的李雅普诺夫函数,则在合适条件下,该定理可处理潜在无界的马尔可夫噪声,将样本保证从独立同分布或鞅差情形推广至更一般场景。我们展示了其强大适用性:(i)改进Q-learning的有限时间界,放宽行为策略范围并收紧误差;(ii)首次建立使用循环块坐标下降进行高维光滑强凸函数分布式随机优化的有限时间界。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Motivated by engineering applications such as resource allocation in networks and inventory systems, we consider average-reward Reinforcement Learning with unbounded state space and reward function. Recent works studied this problem in the actor-critic framework and established finite sample bounds assuming access to a critic with certain error guarantees. We complement their work by studying Temporal Difference (TD) learning with linear function approximation and establishing finite-time bounds with the optimal $\mathcal{O}\left(1/ε^2\right)$ sample complexity. These results are obtained using the following general-purpose theorem for non-linear Stochastic Approximation (SA). Suppose that one constructs a Lyapunov function for a non-linear SA with certain drift condition. Then, our theorem establishes finite-time bounds when this SA is driven by unbounded Markovian noise under suitable conditions. It serves as a black box tool to generalize sample guarantees on SA from i.i.d. or martingale difference case to potentially unbounded Markovian noise. The generality and the mild assumption of the setup enables broad applicability of our theorem. We illustrate its power by studying two more systems: (i) We improve upon the finite-time bounds of $Q$-learning by tightening the error bounds and also allowing for a larger class of behavior policies. (ii) We establish the first ever finite-time bounds for distributed stochastic optimization of high-dimensional smooth strongly convex function using cyclic block coordinate descent.

强化学习随机逼近分布式优化收敛性分析

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