arXiv:2608.20909v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Offline RL methods commonly jointly train the actor and critic, where the critic is used to guide the actor toward higher-value actions. This coupled l...
By Xuyao Lin, Yixiang Shan, Jinru Duan, Tao Yang, Xinyu Zhao, Runyu Lei, Yiming Zhao, Jiaxin Fan, Zongbao Feng, Peng Jia
arXiv:2608. 10634v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL), which learns environment dynamics to generate synthetic experience, is a promising approach to sample-efficient decision making.
By Zefeng Liang, Jie Qiao, Ruichu Cai, Weilin Chen, Zhifeng Hao
arXiv:2604. 15414v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Continual reinforcement learning must balance retention with adaptation, yet many methods still rely on \emph{single-model preservation}, committing to one evolving policy as the main reusable solution across tasks.
By Lute Lillo, Nick Cheney
arXiv:2608. 19684v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent studies investigate how to leverage pre-collected datasets to improve the policy performance and sample efficiency of RL.
By Tanachai Anakewat, Takayuki Osa, Tatsuya Harada
arXiv:2602. 05459v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Offline goal-conditioned reinforcement learning (GCRL) is typically benchmarked by the best tuned success rate of each method.
By Jan Malte T\"opperwien, Aditya Mohan, Marius Lindauer
CARE‑VI introduces a framework for improving value targets in off‑policy actor‑critic learning by combining Conservative Adaptive Ranking and Screening (CARS), Selector‑Evaluator Value Assessment (SEVA), and Dynamic Adaptive Risk‑aware Enhancement (DARE). CARS limits candidate actions to a budgeted prefix and expands it only when uncertainty exceeds a threshold; SEVA orders candidates with selector critics and reviews their values with an evaluator critic, capping the value at the selector reference; DARE adjusts residual corrections based on candidate reliability and signal gaps. Theoretical analysis bounds errors in each component, and empirical tests on SAC, TD3, and TD7 across four MuJoCo tasks show CARE‑VI consistently outperforms baselines in mean return.
By Xiang Zou, Shengzhu Shi, Junqi Gao, Zhichang Guo
The paper introduces Q-Shaped Options (QSO), a hierarchical reinforcement learning framework that learns action abstractions between consecutive levels using shared encoders shaped by Q functions. QSO employs distinct state-value functions, Q functions, and policies at each hierarchy level, encouraging the low-level Q function to preserve distinctions needed for optimal control while the high-level Q function discards unnecessary distinctions. Experiments on offline goal-conditioned locomotion and manipulation tasks show that QSO learns semantically meaningful option spaces and outperforms baselines, achieving non-zero performance where other algorithms fail.
By Clarisse Wibault, Antoine Gorceix, Antonio L\'eon Villares, Alexey Zakharov, Evangelos Chatzaroulas, Michael Matthews, Eduardo Pignatelli, Jakob Foerster
arXiv:2609.21108v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has achieved strong performance across a wide range of continuous-control problems. These continuous-control policies...
By Sachini Weerasekara, Sagar Kamarthi, Jacqueline Isaacs
The paper introduces Q‑Learning with Scalar Adjoint Matching (SQAM), a method that replaces expensive per‑step vector–Jacobian products in flow policy fine‑tuning with a closed‑form scalar adjoint that scales the value gradient by flow time. SQAM also incorporates a value penalty on policy‑generated actions, which is shown to be crucial for effective learning. Experiments demonstrate that SQAM outperforms strong baselines on the hardest OGBench domains and improves supervised fine‑tuning on a real bimanual robot with a vision‑language‑action policy.
By Yonghoon Dong, Minsung Yoon, Jaehyuk Kim, Jungwoo Park, Changyeon Kim, Jinwoo Shin
Contrastive Branch Policy Optimization (CBPO) is a reinforcement learning method that separates the allocation of a fixed rollout budget from the translation of branch outcomes into token-level credit. It uses generation entropy to screen branch positions, path- and node-level decay to distribute the budget, and Contrastive Branch Value (CBV) to estimate local decision sensitivity without changing reward signs. CBPO partitions trajectories into non-overlapping credit segments, preventing duplicated gradients and enabling fine-grained credit assignment using only outcome rewards.
By Ying Wang, Changlin Qiu, Bang Lin, Linbo Jin, Wen Jiang, Zhe Sun, Jingli Yang
arXiv:2608.30406v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Goal-conditioned reinforcement learning struggles with long horizons when rewards are sparse. While a planner can provide subgoals to guide a low-level...
By Olivier Serris, St\'ephane Doncieux, Olivier Sigaud
arXiv:2610.13755v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Training long-horizon language model agents requires assigning credit to intermediate decisions from sparse terminal feedback. Within a finite group...
By Chenxu Zhang, Yaorui Shi, Wenlong Zhang, Jianchao Tan, Zihan Wang, Yiming Cheng