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Reinforcement Learning

The document provides an overview of Reinforcement Learning (RL), detailing its core principles, key elements, and strategies for balancing exploration and exploitation. It also discusses applications of RL in robotics, game playing, and autonomous systems, as well as the study of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Additionally, it covers optimization techniques like gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent, addressing challenges such as vanishing and exploding gradients.

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Divesh Saini
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2 views

Reinforcement Learning

The document provides an overview of Reinforcement Learning (RL), detailing its core principles, key elements, and strategies for balancing exploration and exploitation. It also discusses applications of RL in robotics, game playing, and autonomous systems, as well as the study of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Additionally, it covers optimization techniques like gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent, addressing challenges such as vanishing and exploding gradients.

Uploaded by

Divesh Saini
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Methods
1. Core Principles of Reinforcement Learning
o Definition: RL is a type of machine learning where an agent learns
to take actions in an environment to maximize cumulative rewards.
o Key Elements:

 Agent: The decision-maker.


 Environment: The world in which the agent operates.
 State (ss): The current situation of the agent in the
environment.
 Action (aa): The choice made by the agent.
 Reward (rr): Feedback from the environment based on the
agent's action.
 Policy (π\pi): A strategy that maps states to actions.
 Value Function (V(s)V(s)): The expected cumulative
reward from a given state.
 Q-Value (Q(s,a)Q(s, a)): The expected cumulative reward of
taking a specific action from a given state.
2. Exploration of Reward-Punishment Mechanisms
o Reward: Positive feedback for desirable actions.

o Punishment: Negative feedback for undesirable actions.

o Goal: Encourage the agent to learn a policy that maximizes long-


term rewards.
o Example: In a game, scoring a point is a reward, while losing a life
is a punishment.
3. Strategies for Balancing Exploration vs. Exploitation
o Exploration: Trying new actions to discover better rewards.

o Exploitation: Using known actions to maximize rewards based on


past experience.
o Trade-Off: Balancing exploration and exploitation is critical to
learning efficiently.
o Strategies:

 ϵ\epsilon-Greedy: With probability ϵ\epsilon, explore;


otherwise, exploit.
 Decay: Gradually reduce exploration as the agent learns
more.
 Softmax Action Selection: Assign probabilities to actions
based on their expected value.

Applications
1. Case Studies and Examples of RL in Real-World Scenarios
o Robotics:

 Teaching robots to walk, navigate, or perform tasks.


 Example: Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, Spot.
o Game Playing:

 AlphaGo defeating professional Go players.


 OpenAI's Dota 2 bot outperforming humans.
o Autonomous Systems:

 Self-driving cars learning to navigate.


 Industrial automation for optimizing processes.
2. Study of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs)
o Definition: A mathematical framework for modeling RL problems
where outcomes are partly random and partly controlled by the
agent.
o Components:

 States (SS): Possible situations.


 Actions (AA): Choices available to the agent.

 Transition Probability (P(s′∣s,a)P(s'|s, a)): Probability of


moving to state s′s' from ss after action aa.
 Reward Function (R(s,a,s′)R(s, a, s')): Reward received
after transitioning to s′s'.
 Policy (π(s)\pi(s)): Maps states to actions.
o Objective: Maximize the cumulative reward (discounted sum of
future rewards): Gt=∑k=0∞γkRt+kG_t = \sum_{k=0}^\infty \
gamma^k R_{t+k} where γ\gamma is the discount factor (0 ≤γ≤\
leq \gamma \leq 1).

Preparation Tips
 Understand core concepts such as policies, rewards, and the exploration-
exploitation trade-off.
 Practice formulating RL problems as MDPs.
 Study examples of RL applications to connect theoretical concepts to real-
world scenarios.

Optimization techniques

Optimization Techniques
Gradient Descent
1. Standard Gradient Descent Method
o Definition: Gradient descent is an iterative optimization algorithm
used to minimize a cost function by updating parameters in the
opposite direction of the gradient.

o Update Rule: θt+1=θt−η∇J(θ)\theta_{t+1} = \theta_t - \eta \nabla


J(\theta) where:
 θt\theta_t: Parameters at iteration tt.
 η\eta: Learning rate.

 ∇J(θ)\nabla J(\theta): Gradient of the cost function J(θ)J(\theta)


with respect to parameters θ\theta.
o Objective: Minimize the cost function J(θ)J(\theta), such as Mean
Squared Error (MSE) or Cross-Entropy Loss.
2. Derivation and Use in Minimizing Cost Functions
o Starting from the Taylor series approximation: J(θ+Δθ)≈J(θ)
+∇J(θ)⋅ΔθJ(\theta + \Delta \theta) \approx J(\theta) + \nabla J(\theta)
\cdot \Delta \theta To minimize J(θ)J(\theta), choose Δθ\Delta \theta
to decrease J(θ)J(\theta): Δθ=−η∇J(θ)\Delta \theta = -\eta \nabla J(\
theta)

o This leads to the parameter update rule: θt+1=θt−η∇J(θt)\


theta_{t+1} = \theta_t - \eta \nabla J(\theta_t)

Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD)


1. Comparison with Standard Gradient Descent
o Standard Gradient Descent:

 Uses the entire dataset to compute the gradient.


 Converges smoothly but is computationally expensive for
large datasets.
o Stochastic Gradient Descent:
 Computes the gradient using a single data point or a small
batch.
 Faster and more efficient for large datasets but introduces
noise in updates.
2. Advantages of SGD in Large Datasets
o Requires less memory as it operates on smaller batches or single
data points.
o Speeds up training, especially on large datasets.

o Allows for online updates, making it suitable for streaming data.

Challenges with Gradients


1. Issues
o Vanishing Gradients:

 Gradients become extremely small, leading to minimal


parameter updates.
 Common in deep networks with activation functions like
sigmoid or tanh.
o Exploding Gradients:

 Gradients grow exponentially during backpropagation,


causing instability in training.
 Occurs in networks with large weights or unbounded
activation functions.
2. Techniques to Mitigate These Challenges
o Vanishing Gradients:

 Use activation functions like ReLU or Leaky ReLU.


 Implement batch normalization to standardize layer inputs.
 Use advanced architectures like Long Short-Term Memory
(LSTM) networks for sequential data.
o Exploding Gradients:

 Apply gradient clipping to limit the gradient magnitude.


 Use weight regularization techniques (e.g., L2L2-
regularization).
 Initialize weights carefully (e.g., Xavier or He initialization).

Key Takeaways
 Gradient descent and its variants (e.g., SGD) are foundational for training
machine learning models.
 Understanding and addressing challenges like vanishing and exploding
gradients is crucial for optimizing deep learning models.
 Efficient optimization improves training speed, convergence, and overall
model performance.

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