Physics-Informed Model and Hybrid Planning for Efficient Dyna-Style Reinforcement Learning

By Zakariae EL ASRI, Olivier Sigaud, and Nicolas THOME

Reinforcement Learning Journal, vol. 2, 2024, pp. 693–713.

Presented at the Reinforcement Learning Conference (RLC), Amherst Massachusetts, August 9–12, 2024.


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Abstract:

Applying reinforcement learning (RL) to real-world applications requires addressing a trade-off between asymptotic performance, sample efficiency, and inference time. In this work, we demonstrate how to address this triple challenge by leveraging partial physical knowledge about the system dynamics. Our approach involves learning a physics-informed model to boost sample efficiency and generating imaginary trajectories from this model to learn a model-free policy and Q-function. Furthermore, we propose a hybrid planning strategy, combining the learned policy and Q-function with the learned model to enhance time efficiency in planning. Through practical demonstrations, we illustrate that our method improves the compromise between sample efficiency, time efficiency, and performance over state-of-the-art methods.


Citation Information:

Zakariae EL ASRI, Olivier Sigaud, and Nicolas THOME. "Physics-Informed Model and Hybrid Planning for Efficient Dyna-Style Reinforcement Learning." Reinforcement Learning Journal, vol. 2, 2024, pp. 693–713.

BibTeX:

@article{asri2024physics,
    title={Physics-Informed Model and Hybrid Planning for Efficient Dyna-Style Reinforcement Learning},
    author={ASRI, Zakariae EL and Sigaud, Olivier and THOME, Nicolas},
    journal={Reinforcement Learning Journal},
    volume={2},
    pages={693--713},
    year={2024}
}