The paper introduces a robust variant of Monte Carlo Tree Search that addresses ambiguities in transition dynamics and reward distributions, bridging the gap between simulation-based planning and real-world deployment. It incorporates a robust power mean backup operator and exploration bonuses to guarantee finite-sample convergence at every node, achieving an ≠O(n−1/2) convergence rate for root value estimation comparable to standard MCTS. Empirical results demonstrate robust performance in planning tasks even under significant model mismatches.
arXiv:2609.06489v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has demonstrated success in online planning for deterministic environments, yet significant challenges remain in adapt...
arXiv:2607. 05359v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Planning under uncertainty in continuous domains is essential for autonomous systems, yet computationally demanding.
Planning under uncertainty in continuous domains is essential for autonomous systems, yet computationally demanding. Tree-based search methods such as Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) remain popular, but their branching structure can require sampling budgets that grow exponentially with lookahead depth in the worst case.
arXiv:2607. 09298v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study general-utility Markov decision processes (GUMDPs) with risk-aware objectives.
arXiv:2605. 29032v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) agents typically learn world models by minimizing predictive loss.
The article argues that Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and every‑visit Monte Carlo (MC) control are essentially the same method, differing only in terminology and presentation. It shows that MCTS’s four stages—selection, expansion, simulation, and backup—can be reduced to two core operations: sampling trajectories under the current policy and performing every‑visit MC updates. The note aims to make this equivalence explicit and easier to recognize.
arXiv:2601. 19612v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Safe exploration is a key requirement for reinforcement learning (RL) agents to learn and adapt online, beyond controlled (e.
arXiv:2608. 09335v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multistage stochastic model predictive control (MPC) handles uncertainty by optimizing over a scenario tree, a finite branching approximation of future outcomes constructed from sampled forecasts.
We study fixed-confidence best-action identification (BAI) in stochastic minimax trees. This problem is increasingly relevant in modern AI planning, where deep minimax search and Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) with language model long rollouts face a fundamental tradeoff: heuristic evaluations are cheap but biased, while accurate rollouts are reliable but prohibitively expensive.
arXiv:2609.09094v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Combining search with function approximation has driven major advances in game-playing programs, making self-play algorithms more competitive than ever...
arXiv:2606. 01708v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We study fixed-confidence best-action identification (BAI) in stochastic minimax trees.
arXiv:2606. 15247v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The asymptotic behaviour of Monte Carlo Exploring Starts (MCES) is a long-standing open question in reinforcement learning, even in the tabular setting.