The book reviews developments in the following fields: optimal adaptive control; online differential games; reinforcement learning principles; and dynamic feedback control systems.

This handbook presents state-of-the-art research in reinforcement learning, focusing on its applications in the control and game theory of dynamic systems and future directions for related research and technology. The contributions gathered in this book deal with challenges faced when using learning and adaptation methods to solve academic and industrial problems, such as optimization in dynamic environments with single and multiple agents, convergence and performance analysis, and online implementation. They explore means by which these difficulties can be solved, and cover a wide range of related topics including: deep learning; artificial intelligence; applications of game theory; mixed modality learning; and multi-agent reinforcement learning. Practicing engineers and scholars in the field of machine learning, game theory, and autonomous control will find the Handbook of Reinforcement Learning and Control to be thought-provoking, instructive and informative.

The significantly expanded and updated new edition of a widely used text on reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence. Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives while interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the field's key ideas and algorithms. This second edition has been significantly expanded and updated, presenting new topics and updating coverage of other topics. Like the first edition, this second edition focuses on core online learning algorithms, with the more mathematical material set off in shaded boxes. Part I covers as much of reinforcement learning as possible without going beyond the tabular case for which exact solutions can be found. Many algorithms presented in this part are new to the second edition, including UCB, Expected Sarsa, and Double Learning. Part II extends these ideas to function approximation, with new sections on such topics as artificial neural networks and the Fourier basis, and offers expanded treatment of off-policy learning and policy-gradient methods. Part III has new chapters on reinforcement learning's relationships to psychology and neuroscience, as well as an updated case-studies chapter including AlphaGo and AlphaGo Zero, Atari game playing, and IBM Watson's wagering strategy. The final chapter discusses the future societal impacts of reinforcement learning.

The book deals with intelligent control of mobile robots, presenting the state-of-the-art in the field, and introducing new control algorithms developed and tested by the authors. It also discusses the use of artificial intelligent methods like neural networks and neuraldynamic programming, including globalised dual-heuristic dynamic programming, for controlling wheeled robots and robotic manipulators,and compares them to classical control methods.

This book considers large and challenging multistage decision problems, which can be solved in principle by dynamic programming (DP), but their exact solution is computationally intractable. We discuss solution methods that rely on approximations to produce suboptimal policies with adequate performance. These methods are collectively known by several essentially equivalent names: reinforcement learning, approximate dynamic programming, neuro-dynamic programming. They have been at the forefront of research for the last 25 years, and they underlie, among others, the recent impressive successes of self-learning in the context of games such as chess and Go. Our subject has benefited greatly from the interplay of ideas from optimal control and from artificial intelligence, as it relates to reinforcement learning and simulation-based neural network methods. One of the aims of the book is to explore the common boundary between these two fields and to form a bridge that is accessible by workers with background in either field. Another aim is to organize coherently the broad mosaic of methods that have proved successful in practice while having a solid theoretical and/or logical foundation. This may help researchers and practitioners to find their way through the maze of competing ideas that constitute the current state of the art. This book relates to several of our other books: Neuro-Dynamic Programming (Athena Scientific, 1996), Dynamic Programming and Optimal Control (4th edition, Athena Scientific, 2017), Abstract Dynamic Programming (2nd edition, Athena Scientific, 2018), and Nonlinear Programming (Athena Scientific, 2016). However, the mathematical style of this book is somewhat different. While we provide a rigorous, albeit short, mathematical account of the theory of finite and infinite horizon dynamic programming, and some fundamental approximation methods, we rely more on intuitive explanations and less on proof-based insights. Moreover, our mathematical requirements are quite modest: calculus, a minimal use of matrix-vector algebra, and elementary probability (mathematically complicated arguments involving laws of large numbers and stochastic convergence are bypassed in favor of intuitive explanations). The book illustrates the methodology with many examples and illustrations, and uses a gradual expository approach, which proceeds along four directions: (a) From exact DP to approximate DP: We first discuss exact DP algorithms, explain why they may be difficult to implement, and then use them as the basis for approximations. (b) From finite horizon to infinite horizon problems: We first discuss finite horizon exact and approximate DP methodologies, which are intuitive and mathematically simple, and then progress to infinite horizon problems. (c) From deterministic to stochastic models: We often discuss separately deterministic and stochastic problems, since deterministic problems are simpler and offer special advantages for some of our methods. (d) From model-based to model-free implementations: We first discuss model-based implementations, and then we identify schemes that can be appropriately modified to work with a simulator. The book is related and supplemented by the companion research monograph Rollout, Policy Iteration, and Distributed Reinforcement Learning (Athena Scientific, 2020), which focuses more closely on several topics related to rollout, approximate policy iteration, multiagent problems, discrete and Bayesian optimization, and distributed computation, which are either discussed in less detail or not covered at all in the present book. The author's website contains class notes, and a series of videolectures and slides from a 2021 course at ASU, which address a selection of topics from both books.

This book presents a class of novel optimal control methods and games schemes based on adaptive dynamic programming techniques. For systems with one control input, the ADP-based optimal control is designed for different objectives, while for systems with multi-players, the optimal control inputs are proposed based on games. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods, the book analyzes the properties of the adaptive dynamic programming methods, including convergence of the iterative value functions and the stability of the system under the iterative control laws. Further, to substantiate the mathematical analysis, it presents various application examples, which provide reference to real-world practices.

Adaptive control has been one of the main problems studied in control theory. The subject is well understood, yet it has a very active research frontier. This book focuses on a specific subclass of adaptive control, namely, learning-based adaptive control. As systems evolve during time or are exposed to unstructured environments, it is expected that some of their characteristics may change. This book offers a new perspective about how to deal with these variations. By merging together Model-Free and Model-Based learning algorithms, the author demonstrates, using a number of mechatronic examples, how the learning process can be shortened and optimal control performance can be reached and maintained. - Includes a good number of Mechatronics Examples of the techniques. - Compares and blends Model-free and Model-based learning algorithms. - Covers fundamental concepts, state-of-the-art research, necessary tools for modeling, and control.