提出样本权重衰减法,缓解强化学习中因梯度衰减导致的持续学习能力下降问题。
The Rank and Gradient Lost in Non-stationarity: Sample Weight Decay for Mitigating Plasticity Loss in Reinforcement Learning
- 从神经网络优化理论出发,揭示非平稳数据与目标导致梯度衰减与NTK矩阵秩坍缩
- 提出样本权重衰减,有效恢复梯度幅值,在多种算法与环境下提升性能
- 适用于基于经验回放的深度强化学习方法,尤其适合持续学习场景
深度强化学习因非平稳性严重遭受可塑性损失,难以适应新数据并持续学习。现有研究多依赖经验发现,理论理解不足。本文从网络优化理论视角分析在线RL中数据分布与目标非平稳性的双重影响,首次从理论上证明可塑性损失源于两个机制:神经正切核(NTK)Gram矩阵秩坍缩和梯度幅值以Θ(1/k)速率衰减。前者解释了已有方法(如网络重置、神经元回收、噪声注入)的效果,后者为新方向。本文聚焦梯度衰减问题,提出轻量级方法‘样本权重衰减’(Sample Weight Decay),通过恢复梯度幅值来缓解可塑性损失。在MuJoCo、ALE和DeepMind Control Suite任务上,对TD3、Double DQN和SAC-SimBa等算法验证表明,该方法显著提升学习性能,跨不同超参数、网络结构和环境均表现一致,尤其在挑战性的DMC Humanoid任务上达到当前最优水平。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Deep reinforcement learning (RL) suffers from plasticity loss severely due to the nature of non-stationarity, which impairs the ability to adapt to new data and learn continually. Unfortunately, our understanding of how plasticity loss arises, dissipates, and can be dissolved remains limited to empirical findings, leaving the theoretical end underexplored.To address this gap, we study the plasticity loss problem from the theoretical perspective of network optimization. By formally characterizing the two culprit factors in online RL process: the non-stationarity of data distributions and the non-stationarity of targets induced by bootstrapping, our theory attributes the loss of plasticity to two mechanisms: the rank collapse of the Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) Gram matrix and the $Θ(\frac{1}{k})$ decay of gradient magnitude. The first mechanism echoes prior empirical findings from the theoretical perspective and sheds light on the effects of existing methods, e.g., network reset, neuron recycle, and noise injection. Against this backdrop, we focus primarily on the second mechanism and aim to alleviate plasticity loss by addressing the gradient attenuation issue, which is orthogonal to existing methods. We propose Sample Weight Decay -- a lightweight method to restore gradient magnitude, as a general remedy to plasticity loss for deep RL methods based on experience replay. In experiments, we evaluate the efficacy of \methodName upon TD3, \myadded{Double DQN} and SAC with SimBa architecture in MuJoCo, \myadded{ALE} and DeepMind Control Suite tasks. The results demonstrate that \methodName effectively alleviates plasticity loss and consistently improves learning performance across various configurations of deep RL algorithms, UTD, network architectures, and environments, achieving SOTA performance on challenging DMC Humanoid tasks.
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