arXiv:2606. 07367v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently emerged as powerful controllers for interactive agents in complex environments, yet training them to perform reliable long-horizon decision making remains a fundamental challenge.
By Yudi Zhang, Meng Fang, Zhenfang Chen, Mykola Pechenizkiy
arXiv:2605. 11020v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is typically formulated as maximizing entropy subject to matching the distribution of expert trajectories.
By Anish Diwan, Davide Tateo, Christopher E. Mower, Haitham Bou-Ammar, Jan Peters, Oleg Arenz
The paper introduces Residual Reward Models (RRM) to enhance preference‑based reinforcement learning (PbRL) in robotics. RRMs decompose the true reward into a prior component—such as a heuristic, language‑generated, or IRL‑derived reward—and a learned residual that is trained with human preferences. Experiments on Meta‑World, DM‑Control, and a physical Franka Panda robot show that RRMs markedly improve sample efficiency and accelerate policy learning compared to standard PbRL methods.
By Chenyang Cao, Miguel Rogel-Garc\'ia, Mohamed Nabail, Xueqian Wang, Nicholas Rhinehart
arXiv:2606. 12372v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning (HiL-RL) has emerged as an effective paradigm for real-world robotic manipulation, enabling online policy improvement with human guidance.
By Haoyuan Deng, Yitong Gao, Yudong Lin, Haichao Liu, Zhenyu Wu, Ziwei Wang
arXiv:2606. 28152v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We propose KL-Coupled Policy Regularization (KCPR), a policy coordination framework for Reward-Punishment Reinforcement Learning (RPRL).
By Jiexin Wang, Eiji Uchibe
arXiv:2609.17325v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Biological cells can be viewed as individual, interacting agents whose collective dynamics give rise to adaptive behaviour at multiple levels of organi...
By Anatoly Belikov
arXiv:2608. 08158v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Sparse, delayed, and weakly informative rewards remain central obstacles to efficient reinforcement learning.
By Fouad Bahrpeyma
arXiv:2606. 02194v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Distilling expert demonstration data into large generative models using behavioral cloning is a scalable approach to learning capable policies for robotic control, particularly for dexterous manipulation.
By Christian Scherer, Joe Watson, Theo Gruner, Daniel Palenicek, Ingmar Posner, Jan Peters
The paper investigates when intrinsic rewards effectively drive exploration in reinforcement learning. It introduces a formal criterion that evaluates policies based on the counterfactual information they acquire, comparing how well their histories can replace experience from alternative policies. Using a simple environment, the authors show that common intrinsic reward objectives—count-based, prediction-error, empowerment, and information-gain—can lead to Pareto-suboptimal exploration under this criterion, and they propose conditions and a new objective that better align with optimal exploration.
By Scott W. Viteri (Stanford University), Laura Gomezjurado Gonzalez (Stanford University), Clark Barrett (Stanford University)
arXiv:2607. 00442v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning (RL) for quadruped locomotion commonly depends on fixed, hand-crafted, and Markovian reward functions that limit both interpretability of learned policies and lack explicit control over gait behaviors.
By Merve Atasever, Cagan Bakirci, Alfredo Reina Corona, Keyan Azbijari, Jyotirmoy V. Deshmukh
arXiv:2609.38955v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) aims to recover a reward function that explains expert demonstrations. Existing IRL methods typically rely on a...
By Yang chen, Yitan Zhang, Michael Witbrock, Shuyue Hu
arXiv:2509. 03206v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Learning from reward functions and imitation learning of demonstrations are the two principal approaches for training autonomous systems that interact with an environment through action and observation.
By Zeqiang Zhang, Fabian Wurzberger, Gerrit Schmid, Sebastian Gottwald, Daniel A. Braun