Book Image

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms with Python

By : Andrea Lonza
Book Image

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms with Python

By: Andrea Lonza

Overview of this book

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a popular and promising branch of AI that involves making smarter models and agents that can automatically determine ideal behavior based on changing requirements. This book will help you master RL algorithms and understand their implementation as you build self-learning agents. Starting with an introduction to the tools, libraries, and setup needed to work in the RL environment, this book covers the building blocks of RL and delves into value-based methods, such as the application of Q-learning and SARSA algorithms. You'll learn how to use a combination of Q-learning and neural networks to solve complex problems. Furthermore, you'll study the policy gradient methods, TRPO, and PPO, to improve performance and stability, before moving on to the DDPG and TD3 deterministic algorithms. This book also covers how imitation learning techniques work and how Dagger can teach an agent to drive. You'll discover evolutionary strategies and black-box optimization techniques, and see how they can improve RL algorithms. Finally, you'll get to grips with exploration approaches, such as UCB and UCB1, and develop a meta-algorithm called ESBAS. By the end of the book, you'll have worked with key RL algorithms to overcome challenges in real-world applications, and be part of the RL research community.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Algorithms and Environments
5
Section 2: Model-Free RL Algorithms
11
Section 3: Beyond Model-Free Algorithms and Improvements
17
Assessments

Summary

RL is a goal-oriented approach to decision-making. It differs from other paradigms due to its direct interaction with the environment and for its delayed reward mechanism. The combination of RL and deep learning is very useful in problems with high-dimensional state spaces and in problems with perceptual inputs. The concepts of policy and value functions are key as they give an indication about the action to take and the quality of the states of the environment. In RL, the model of the environment is not required, but it can give additional information and, therefore, improve the quality of the policy.

Now that all the key concepts have been introduced, in the following chapters, the focus will be on actual RL algorithms. But first, in the next chapter, you will be given the grounding to develop RL algorithms using OpenAI and TensorFlow.

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