Geodesic Gaussian kernels for value function approximation

  • Authors:
  • Masashi Sugiyama;Hirotaka Hachiya;Christopher Towell;Sethu Vijayakumar

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan 152-8552 and School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9, UK 3JZ;Department of Computer Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan 152-8552;School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9, UK 3JZ;School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9, UK 3JZ

  • Venue:
  • Autonomous Robots
  • Year:
  • 2008

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The least-squares policy iteration approach works efficiently in value function approximation, given appropriate basis functions. Because of its smoothness, the Gaussian kernel is a popular and useful choice as a basis function. However, it does not allow for discontinuity which typically arises in real-world reinforcement learning tasks. In this paper, we propose a new basis function based on geodesic Gaussian kernels, which exploits the non-linear manifold structure induced by the Markov decision processes. The usefulness of the proposed method is successfully demonstrated in simulated robot arm control and Khepera robot navigation.