Sampling-Based Safe Reinforcement Learning (SBSRL) is a model‑based RL algorithm that enforces safety by jointly constraining a finite set of dynamics samples, approximating a worst‑case optimization over uncertain dynamics. It introduces an exploration strategy that limits epistemic uncertainty, removing the need for explicit exploration bonuses. The authors provide high‑probability safety guarantees and a finite‑time sample complexity bound, and demonstrate safe, efficient exploration in both simulation and real robotic hardware, with extensions to deep‑ensemble implementations for high‑dimensional continuous control.
By Luca Vignola, Bruce D. Lee, Manish Prajapat, Manuel Wendl, Melanie Zeilinger, Andreas Krause, Yarden As
The paper introduces a new approach to learning chance-constrained Markov decision processes (CCMDPs) using a Bellman distributional certificate. It provides both model-based and model-free algorithms with theoretical guarantees, including matching upper and lower bounds for tabular discounted CCMDPs with bounded successor support. Numerical experiments on synthetic CCMDPs and an IEEE 14-bus energy storage benchmark demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of the proposed methods.
By Chenbei Lu, Hongyu Yi
arXiv:2607. 15457v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We study robust peak-cost constrained reinforcement learning (RP-CRL), where the objective is to maximize expected reward while controlling the maximum cost encountered along a trajectory.
By Shilpa Mukhopadhyay, Sourav Ganguly, Santosh Mohan Rajkumar, Honghao Wei, Debdipta Goswami, Arnob Ghosh
The paper introduces Policy Gradient Penalty (PGP), a single‑loop policy‑space method that enforces convex occupancy‑measure constraints via quadratic‑penalty regularization. PGP constructs pseudo‑rewards to estimate gradients of the penalized objective and uses the classical Policy Gradient Theorem, establishing smoothness and global last‑iterate convergence guarantees for an ε‑optimal constrained entropy value with ε‑bounded constraint violation. The authors validate PGP with ablations on a grid‑world benchmark and demonstrate scalability on two challenging continuous‑control tasks.
By Florian Wolf, Ilyas Fatkhullin, Niao He
arXiv:2606. 14415v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Safe reinforcement learning (Safe RL) aims to maximize expected return while satisfying safety constraints, typically modeled as Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs).
By Ayoub Belouadah, Sylvain Kubler, Yves Le Traon
arXiv:2601. 22993v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We introduce Canary, a risk-averse method designed to optimize Value-at-Risk (VaR) constrained reinforcement learning (RL) problems.
By Rohan Tangri, Jan-Peter Calliess
arXiv:2606. 14536v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Safe reinforcement learning (RL) aims to learn policies that optimize rewards while satisfying constraints.
By Kai S. Yun, Zeyang Li, Navid Azizan
arXiv:2608. 10204v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Safe reinforcement learning maximizes reward subject to safety constraints.
By Chenhua Fan, Jiahui Zhu, Yuhang Zhang, Honghao Wei
arXiv:2606. 04812v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Guaranteeing safety is critical to the deployment of reinforcement learning (RL) agents in the real-world, especially as policies learned using deep RL may demonstrate susceptibility to transition perturbations that result in unknown or unsafe behaviour.
By Mohit Prashant, Arvind Easwaran
The paper proves that using a permissive safety filter in reinforcement learning does not compromise asymptotic performance. By formalizing safety through a safety‑critical Markov decision process and a filtered MDP, the authors show that optimal policies in the filtered MDP achieve the same return as the best safe policy in the original setting. Experiments on Safety Gymnasium confirm zero violations during training and performance that matches or exceeds unfiltered baselines.
By Donggeon David Oh, Duy P. Nguyen, Haimin Hu, Jaime Fern\'andez Fisac
arXiv:2607. 12784v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Reinforcement Learning has revolutionized the landscape of robotic research, allowing robust learning of complex robotic skills in simulation.
By Paolo Magliano, Puze Liu, Jan Peters, Davide Tateo, Raffaello Camoriano
arXiv:2506. 02255v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Most existing safe reinforcement learning (RL) benchmarks focus on robotics and control tasks, offering limited relevance to high-stakes domains that involve structured constraints, mixed-integer decisions, and industrial complexity.
By Asha Ramanujam (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN), Adam Elyoumi (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN), Hao Chen (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN), Sai Madhukiran Kompalli (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN), Akshdeep Singh Ahluwalia (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN), Shraman Pal (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN), Dimitri J. Papageorgiou (Energy Sciences, ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company, Annandale, NJ), Can Li (Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN)