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arXiv · 2306.08470

Bandits with Replenishable Knapsacks: the Best of both Worlds

Martino Bernasconi·Matteo Castiglioni·Andrea Celli·Federico Fusco
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Abstract

The bandits with knapsack (BwK) framework models online decision-making problems in which an agent makes a sequence of decisions subject to resource consumption constraints. The traditional model assumes that each action consumes a non-negative amount of resources and the process ends when the initial budgets are fully depleted. We study a natural generalization of the BwK framework which allows non-monotonic resource utilization, i.e., resources can be replenished by a positive amount. We propose a best-of-both-worlds primal-dual template that can handle any online learning problem with replenishment for which a suitable primal regret minimizer exists. In particular, we provide the first positive results for the case of adversarial inputs by showing that our framework guarantees a constant competitive ratio $\alpha$ when $B=\Omega(T)$ or when the possible per-round replenishment is a positive constant. Moreover, under a stochastic input model, our algorithm yields an instance-independent $\tilde{O}(T^{1/2})$ regret bound which complements existing instance-dependent bounds for the same setting. Finally, we provide applications of our framework to some economic problems of practical relevance.

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Martino Bernasconi, Matteo Castiglioni, Andrea Celli, Federico Fusco. 2023-06-14. Bandits with Replenishable Knapsacks: the Best of both Worlds. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08470

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