Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Conferences, Workshops, Symposiums, and Seminars
  4. Understanding Deep Neural Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learning via ϵ-Greedy Exploration
 
conference paper

Understanding Deep Neural Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learning via ϵ-Greedy Exploration

Liu, Fanghui  
•
Viano, Luca  
•
Cevher, Volkan  orcid-logo
2022
[Proceedings of NeurIPS 2022]
Thirty-sixth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems - NeurIPS 2022

This paper provides a theoretical study of deep neural function approximation in reinforcement learning (RL) with the ϵ-greedy exploration under the online setting. This problem setting is motivated by the successful deep Q-networks (DQN) framework that falls in this regime. In this work, we provide an initial attempt on theoretical understanding deep RL from the perspective of function class and neural networks architectures (e.g., width and depth) beyond the ``linear'' regime. To be specific, we focus on the value based algorithm with the ϵ-greedy exploration via deep (and two-layer) neural networks endowed by Besov (and Barron) function spaces, respectively, which aims at approximating an α-smooth Q-function in a d-dimensional feature space. We prove that, with T episodes, scaling the width $m = \widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(T^{\frac{d}{2\alpha + d}})$ and the depth $L=\mathcal{O}(\log T)$ of the neural network for deep RL is sufficient for learning with sublinear regret in Besov spaces. Moreover, for a two layer neural network endowed by the Barron space, scaling the width $\Omega(\sqrt{T})$ is sufficient. To achieve this, the key issue in our analysis is how to estimate the temporal difference error under deep neural function approximation as the ϵ-greedy exploration is not enough to ensure "optimism". Our analysis reformulates the temporal difference error in an $L^2(\mathrm{d}\mu)$-integrable space over a certain averaged measure μ, and transforms it to a generalization problem under the non-iid setting. This might have its own interest in RL theory for better understanding $\epsilon$-greedy exploration in deep RL.

  • Files
  • Details
  • Metrics
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name

Fanghui_RL.pdf

Type

Postprint

Version

http://purl.org/coar/version/c_ab4af688f83e57aa

Access type

openaccess

License Condition

copyright

Size

524.13 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

87c2da4e2775762d21b329ebb8287f61

Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés