arXiv:2506.02864cs.LGcs.AI2025-06被引 27

提出自适应奖励归一化方法,提升大模型强化学习训练稳定性与推理能力。

BNPO: Beta Normalization Policy Optimization

  • 用动态Beta分布自适应归一化奖励,随策略更新调整参数。
  • 在推理任务上超越REINFORCE和GRPO,实现最优性能。
  • 适合追求稳定训练的大模型强化学习研究者使用。

近期研究如DeepSeek-R1和Kimi-k1.5表明,基于规则的二值奖励函数可显著提升大语言模型的推理能力。这些模型主要采用REINFORCE类策略优化方法,如带基线的REINFORCE和组相对策略优化(GRPO)。然而关键问题在于:现有方法或忽略奖励归一化,或采用静态归一化策略,无法适应训练中策略分布的动态变化,导致梯度估计不稳定,影响训练效果。为此,本文提出贝塔归一化策略优化(BNPO),通过动态更新参数的贝塔分布自适应归一化奖励,使归一化与策略分布变化同步,实现更精确、低方差的梯度估计,促进稳定训练。我们提供了理论分析,证明了BNPO的方差降低特性,并表明其在二值奖励设置下统一了REINFORCE与GRPO。此外,引入优势分解机制,扩展了BNPO在复杂奖励系统中的适用性。实验结果证实,BNPO在推理任务上达到当前最优性能。代码已开源:https://github.com/changyi7231/BNPO。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Recent studies, including DeepSeek-R1 and Kimi-k1.5, have demonstrated that reinforcement learning with rule-based, binary-valued reward functions can significantly enhance the reasoning capabilities of large language models. These models primarily utilize REINFORCE-based policy optimization techniques, such as REINFORCE with baseline and group relative policy optimization (GRPO). However, a key limitation remains: current policy optimization methods either neglect reward normalization or employ static normalization strategies, which fail to adapt to the dynamic nature of policy updates during training. This may result in unstable gradient estimates and hinder training stability. To address this issue, we propose Beta Normalization Policy Optimization (BNPO), a novel policy optimization method that adaptively normalizes rewards using a Beta distribution with dynamically updated parameters. BNPO aligns the normalization with the changing policy distribution, enabling more precise and lower-variance gradient estimation, which in turn promotes stable training dynamics. We provide theoretical analysis demonstrating BNPO's variance-reducing properties and show that it generalizes both REINFORCE and GRPO under binary-valued reward settings. Furthermore, we introduce an advantage decomposition mechanism to extend BNPO's applicability to more complex reward systems. Experimental results confirm that BNPO achieves state-of-the-art performance among policy optimization methods on reasoning tasks. The code is available at https://github.com/changyi7231/BNPO.

强化学习策略优化大模型奖励归一化

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