Convergence of policy gradient for entropy regularized MDPs with neural network approximation in the mean-field regime
File(s)2201.07296v1.pdf (435.75 KB)
Working Paper
Author(s)
Kerimkulov, Bekzhan
Leahy, James-Michael
Šiška, David
Szpruch, Lukasz
Type
Working Paper
Abstract
We study the global convergence of policy gradient for infinite-horizon, continuous state and action space, and entropy-regularized Markov decision processes (MDPs). We consider a softmax policy with (one-hidden layer) neural network approximation in a mean-field regime. Additional entropic regularization in the associated mean-field probability measure is added, and the corresponding gradient flow is studied in the 2-Wasserstein metric. We show that the objective function is increasing along the gradient flow. Further, we prove that if the regularization in terms of the mean-field measure is sufficient, the gradient flow converges exponentially fast to the unique stationary solution, which is the unique maximizer of the regularized MDP objective. Lastly, we study the sensitivity of the value function along the gradient flow with respect to regularization parameters and the initial condition. Our results rely on the careful analysis of the non-linear Fokker–Planck–Kolmogorov equation and extend the pioneering work of \cite{mei2020global} and \cite{agarwal2020optimality}, which quantify the global convergence rate of policy gradient for entropy-regularized MDPs in the tabular setting.
Date Issued
2022-06-28
Date Acceptance
2022-05-15
Citation
Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning, 2022, 162, pp.12222-12252
ISSN
2640-3498
Publisher
PMLR
Start Page
12222
End Page
12252
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning
Volume
162
Copyright Statement
©2022 The Author(s)
Identifier
http://arxiv.org/abs/2201.07296v1
Source
International Conference on Machine Learning
Subjects
math.OC
math.OC
cs.AI
cs.LG
math.PR
stat.ML
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2022-07-17
Finish Date
2022-07-23
Coverage Spatial
Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
Date Publish Online
2022-06-28