Abstract
We propose a new value iteration method for the classical average cost Markovian Decision problem, under the assumption that all stationary policies are unichain and furthermore there exists a state that is recurrent under all stationary policies. This method is motivated by a relation between the average cost problem and an associated stochastic shortest path problem. Contrary to the standard relative value iteration, our method involves a weighted sup norm contraction and for this reason it admits a Gauss-Seidel and an asynchronous implementation. Computational tests indicate that the Gauss-Seidel version of the new method substantially outperforms the standard method for difficult problems. The contraction property also makes the method a suitable basis for the development of asynchronous Q-learning methods.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 2692-2697 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control |
Volume | 3 |
State | Published - 1998 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | Proceedings of the 1998 37th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) - Tampa, FL, USA Duration: Dec 16 1998 → Dec 18 1998 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Control and Systems Engineering
- Modeling and Simulation
- Control and Optimization