Timezone: »

 
Poster
Finite-time Analysis of Approximate Policy Iteration for the Linear Quadratic Regulator
Karl Krauth · Stephen Tu · Benjamin Recht

Tue Dec 10 05:30 PM -- 07:30 PM (PST) @ East Exhibition Hall B + C #219
in Theory -- Learning Theory »
We study the sample complexity of approximate policy iteration (PI) for the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), building on a recent line of work using LQR as a testbed to understand the limits of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms on continuous control tasks. Our analysis quantifies the tension between policy improvement and policy evaluation, and suggests that policy evaluation is the dominant factor in terms of sample complexity. Specifically, we show that to obtain a controller that is within $\varepsilon$ of the optimal LQR controller, each step of policy evaluation requires at most $(n+d)^3/\varepsilon^2$ samples, where $n$ is the dimension of the state vector and $d$ is the dimension of the input vector. On the other hand, only $\log(1/\varepsilon)$ policy improvement steps suffice, resulting in an overall sample complexity of $(n+d)^3 \varepsilon^{-2} \log(1/\varepsilon)$. We furthermore build on our analysis and construct a simple adaptive procedure based on $\varepsilon$-greedy exploration which relies on approximate PI as a sub-routine and obtains $T^{2/3}$ regret, improving upon a recent result of Abbasi-Yadkori et al. 2019.
Keywords: Learning Theory · Control Theory · Theory · Reinforcement Learning and Planning -> Decision and Control; Theory
[ Paper]  [ Poster] 

Author Information

Karl Krauth (UC berkeley)
Stephen Tu (UC Berkeley)
Benjamin Recht (UC Berkeley)

More from the Same Authors