arXiv subjects

Tingting Ni

Publications and source records attributed to Tingting Ni.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Provably Safe Sim-to-Real Transfer

To mitigate the sample complexity of real-world reinforcement learning (RL), a common practice is to first train a policy in a simulator, where samples are cheap, and then deploy the learned policy in the real world with the hope that it generalizes effectively. Such direct sim-to-real transfer is not guaranteed to succeed: simulator-trained policies can be suboptimal in the real world due to sim-to-real mismatch. Correcting this mismatch requires collecting data from the real system, but in many applications, such as robotics and healthcare, this data-collection process is itself subject to safety constraints. This gives rise to the problem of safe sim-to-real transfer: how can an agent exploit an imperfect simulator while ensuring safe real-world data collection and learning a near-optimal feasible policy for the target system? We address this problem by formulating safe sim-to-real transfer within the framework of reward-free safe RL. We design a computationally efficient algorithm that exploits simulator information to provably reduce real-world interaction while ensuring safe exploration and enabling the computation of a near-optimal feasible policy for any potential reward function. Our real-world sample complexity bound characterizes the benefit of using the simulator in terms of the sim-to-real mismatch.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Constrained Meta Reinforcement Learning with Provable Test-Time Safety

Meta reinforcement learning (RL) allows agents to leverage experience across a distribution of tasks on which the agent can train at will, enabling faster learning of optimal policies on new test tasks. Despite its success in improving sample complexity on test tasks, many real-world applications, such as robotics and healthcare, impose safety constraints during testing. Constrained meta RL provides a promising framework for integrating safety into meta RL. An open question in constrained meta RL is how to ensure safety of the policy on the real-world test task, while reducing the sample complexity and thus, enabling faster learning of optimal policies. To address this gap, we propose an algorithm that refines policies learned during training, with provable safety and sample complexity guarantees for learning a near optimal policy on the test tasks. We further derive a matching lower bound, showing that this sample complexity is tight.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

On the characterization of constrained correlated equilibria in Markov games

Markov games with coupling constraints model constrained dynamical decision-making involving self-interested agents, where the feasibility of an individual agent's strategy depends on the joint strategies of the others. Such games arise in numerous real-world applications involving safety requirements and budget caps, for example, in environmental management, electricity markets, and transportation systems. In unconstrained dynamical decision-making, the correlated equilibrium has emerged as a desired solution concept, due to its computational tractability and amenability to learning algorithms. Understanding how coupling constraints shape correlated equilibria is a crucial step towards computing solutions in constrained Markov games. In this paper, we formalize and characterize the notion of constrained correlated equilibria for Markov games, defined as feasible joint policies where any unilateral deviation is either unprofitable or infeasible.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2024

A learning-based approach to stochastic optimal control under reach-avoid constraint

We develop a model-free approach to optimally control stochastic, Markovian systems subject to a reach-avoid constraint. Specifically, the state trajectory must remain within a safe set while reaching a target set within a finite time horizon. Due to the time-dependent nature of these constraints, we show that, in general, the optimal policy for this constrained stochastic control problem is non-Markovian, which increases the computational complexity. To address this challenge, we apply the state-augmentation technique from arXiv:2402.19360, reformulating the problem as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP) on an extended state space. This transformation allows us to search for a Markovian policy, avoiding the complexity of non-Markovian policies. To learn the optimal policy without a system model, and using only trajectory data, we develop a log-barrier policy gradient approach. We prove that under suitable assumptions, the policy parameters converge to the optimal parameters, while ensuring that the system trajectories satisfy the stochastic reach-avoid constraint with high probability.

math.OC↗

arXiv2024

Convergence of a model-free entropy-regularized inverse reinforcement learning algorithm

Given a dataset of expert demonstrations, inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) aims to recover a reward for which the expert is optimal. This work proposes a model-free algorithm to solve entropy-regularized IRL problem. In particular, we employ a stochastic gradient descent update for the reward and a stochastic soft policy iteration update for the policy. Assuming access to a generative model, we prove that our algorithm is guaranteed to recover a reward for which the expert is $\varepsilon$-optimal using $\mathcal{O}(1/\varepsilon^{2})$ samples of the Markov decision process (MDP). Furthermore, with $\mathcal{O}(1/\varepsilon^{4})$ samples we prove that the optimal policy corresponding to the recovered reward is $\varepsilon$-close to the expert policy in total variation distance.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2023

A safe exploration approach to constrained Markov decision processes

We consider discounted infinite-horizon constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), where the goal is to find an optimal policy that maximizes the expected cumulative reward while satisfying expected cumulative constraints. Motivated by the application of CMDPs in online learning for safety-critical systems, we focus on developing a model-free and \emph{simulator-free} algorithm that ensures \emph{constraint satisfaction during learning}. To this end, we employ the LB-SGD algorithm proposed in \cite{usmanova2022log}, which utilizes an interior-point approach based on the log-barrier function of the CMDP. Under the commonly assumed conditions of relaxed Fisher non-degeneracy and bounded transfer error in policy parameterization, we establish the theoretical properties of the LB-SGD algorithm. In particular, unlike existing CMDP approaches that ensure policy feasibility only upon convergence, the LB-SGD algorithm guarantees feasibility throughout the learning process and converges to the $\varepsilon$-optimal policy with a sample complexity of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\varepsilon^{-6})$. Compared to the state-of-the-art policy gradient-based algorithm, C-NPG-PDA \cite{bai2022achieving2}, the LB-SGD algorithm requires an additional $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-2})$ samples to ensure policy feasibility during learning with the same Fisher non-degenerate parameterization.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2023

On the approximation of vector-valued functions by volume sampling

Given a Hilbert space $\mathcal H$ and a finite measure space $\Omega$, the approximation of a vector-valued function $f: \Omega \to \mathcal H$ by a $k$-dimensional subspace $\mathcal U \subset \mathcal H$ plays an important role in dimension reduction techniques, such as reduced basis methods for solving parameter-dependent partial differential equations. For functions in the Lebesgue-Bochner space $L^2(\Omega;\mathcal H)$, the best possible subspace approximation error $d_k^{(2)}$ is characterized by the singular values of $f$. However, for practical reasons, $\mathcal U$ is often restricted to be spanned by point samples of $f$. We show that this restriction only has a mild impact on the attainable error; there always exist $k$ samples such that the resulting error is not larger than $\sqrt{k+1} \cdot d_k^{(2)}$. Our work extends existing results by Binev at al. (SIAM J. Math. Anal., 43(3):1457-1472, 2011) on approximation in supremum norm and by Deshpande et al. (Theory Comput., 2:225-247, 2006) on column subset selection for matrices.

math.NA↗