arXiv:2601.14705cs.NEcs.AI2026-01

用进化突变机制改进PPO,解决探索不足导致的过早收敛问题。

Proximal Policy Optimization with Evolutionary Mutations

  • 通过监测策略与历史平均策略的KL散度,动态触发参数突变以增强探索
  • 在三个环境上显著优于PPO,CarRacing和MountainCar的p值均小于0.0001
  • 适合需要长期探索的强化学习任务,尤其是复杂控制场景

近端策略优化(PPO)是一种广泛应用的强化学习算法,以稳定性和采样效率著称,但常因探索不足导致过早收敛。本文提出POEM(带进化突变的近端策略优化),一种基于进化算法思想的PPO改进方法。该方法通过监控当前策略与历史策略移动平均之间的Kullback-Leibler(KL)散度,当策略变化趋缓时,自动触发策略参数的适应性突变,从而提升策略多样性。我们在四个OpenAI Gym环境(CarRacing、MountainCar、BipedalWalker、LunarLander)上进行了评估,采用贝叶斯优化进行超参数调优,并使用Welch's t检验进行统计分析。结果显示,POEM在三个任务上显著优于原始PPO:BipedalWalker(t=-2.0642, p=0.0495)、CarRacing(t=-6.3987, p=0.0002)、MountainCar(t=-6.2431, p<0.0001),而LunarLander的表现差异不显著(t=-1.8707, p=0.0778)。结果表明,将进化原则融入策略梯度方法,有助于缓解探索-利用权衡问题。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) is a widely used reinforcement learning algorithm known for its stability and sample efficiency, but it often suffers from premature convergence due to limited exploration. In this paper, we propose POEM (Proximal Policy Optimization with Evolutionary Mutations), a novel modification to PPO that introduces an adaptive exploration mechanism inspired by evolutionary algorithms. POEM enhances policy diversity by monitoring the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between the current policy and a moving average of previous policies. When policy changes become minimal, indicating stagnation, POEM triggers an adaptive mutation of policy parameters to promote exploration. We evaluate POEM on four OpenAI Gym environments: CarRacing, MountainCar, BipedalWalker, and LunarLander. Through extensive fine-tuning using Bayesian optimization techniques and statistical testing using Welch's t-test, we find that POEM significantly outperforms PPO on three of the four tasks (BipedalWalker: t=-2.0642, p=0.0495; CarRacing: t=-6.3987, p=0.0002; MountainCar: t=-6.2431, p<0.0001), while performance on LunarLander is not statistically significant (t=-1.8707, p=0.0778). Our results highlight the potential of integrating evolutionary principles into policy gradient methods to overcome exploration-exploitation tradeoffs.

强化学习PPO改进进化计算探索优化

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。