Kernel-based actor-critic approach with applications

Abstract

Recently, actor-critic methods have drawn significant interests in the area of reinforcement learning, and several algorithms have been studied along the line of the actor-critic strategy. In this paper, we consider a new type of actor-critic algorithms employing the kernel methods, which have recently shown to be very effective tools in the various fields of machine learning, and have performed investigations on combining the actor-critic strategy together with kernel methods. More specifically, this paper studies actor-critic algorithms utilizing the kernel-based least-squares estimation and policy gradient, and in its critic’s part, the study uses a sliding-window-based kernel least-squares method, which leads to a fast and efficient value-function-estimation in a nonparametric setting. The applicability of the considered algorithms is illustrated via a robot locomotion problem and a tunnel ventilation control problem.