提出统一框架RFM,让扩散与流模型在在线强化学习中更高效稳定地训练。
Reverse Flow Matching: A Unified Framework for Online Reinforcement Learning with Diffusion and Flow Policies
- 从反向推断视角建模训练目标,用噪声样本估计后验均值。
- 引入Langevin Stein算子构造无偏控制变量,统一了两类已有方法。
- 可融合价值函数与梯度信息,提升连续控制任务的训练效率。
扩散与流策略在在线强化学习中因表达能力强而日益受关注,但其高效训练仍面临挑战。在线RL与标准生成建模的关键区别在于:无法直接获取由Q函数定义的目标Boltzmann分布的样本。为此,针对扩散策略提出了两类看似不同的方法:噪声期望类(以加权噪声平均为目标)与梯度期望类(以加权Q函数梯度为目标)。然而,二者之间的理论关联尚不清晰,也未见系统性整合。本文提出统一框架——反向流匹配(Reverse Flow Matching, RFM),通过反向推断视角,将训练目标建模为给定中间噪声样本下的后验均值估计问题。关键创新在于引入Langevin Stein算子构造零均值控制变量,推导出一类共享相同期望的通用估计器,证明现有两类方法仅为该广义类中的特例。这一统一视角实现了两大进展:一是将目标分布适配能力从扩散扩展至流策略;二是可原则性融合Q值与Q梯度信息,形成高效估计器,显著提升训练效率与稳定性。我们基于RFM实现了在线强化学习中的流策略训练,在连续控制基准上表现优于扩散策略基线。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Diffusion and flow policies are gaining prominence in online reinforcement learning (RL) due to their expressive power, yet training them efficiently remains a critical challenge. A fundamental difficulty that distinguishes online RL from standard generative modeling is the lack of direct samples from the target Boltzmann distribution defined by the Q-function. To address this, two seemingly distinct families of methods have been proposed for diffusion policies: a noise-expectation family, which uses a weighted average of noise as the training target, and a gradient-expectation family, which employs a weighted average of Q-function gradients. However, it remains unclear how these objectives are formally related, or whether they can be synthesized into a more general formulation. In this paper, we propose a unified framework, reverse flow matching (RFM), which rigorously addresses the problem of training diffusion and flow models without direct target samples. By adopting a reverse inferential perspective, we formulate the training target as a posterior mean estimation problem given an intermediate noisy sample. Crucially, we introduce Langevin Stein operators to construct zero-mean control variates, deriving a general class of estimators that share the same expectation. We show that existing noise-expectation and gradient-expectation methods are simply two specific instances within this broader class. This unified view yields two key advancements: it extends the capability of targeting Boltzmann distributions from diffusion to flow policies, and it enables the principled combination of Q-value and Q-gradient information to form an effective estimator, thereby improving training efficiency and stability. We instantiate RFM to train a flow policy in online RL and demonstrate improved performance on continuous-control benchmarks compared to diffusion policy baselines.
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