Book Image

Hands-On Q-Learning with Python

By : Nazia Habib
Book Image

Hands-On Q-Learning with Python

By: Nazia Habib

Overview of this book

Q-learning is a machine learning algorithm used to solve optimization problems in artificial intelligence (AI). It is one of the most popular fields of study among AI researchers. This book starts off by introducing you to reinforcement learning and Q-learning, in addition to helping you become familiar with OpenAI Gym as well as libraries such as Keras and TensorFlow. A few chapters into the book, you will gain insights into model-free Q-learning and use deep Q-networks and double deep Q-networks to solve complex problems. This book will guide you in exploring use cases such as self-driving vehicles and OpenAI Gym’s CartPole problem. You will also learn how to tune and optimize Q-networks and their hyperparameters. As you progress, you will understand the reinforcement learning approach to solving real-world problems. You will also explore how to use Q-learning and related algorithms in scientific research. Toward the end, you’ll gain insight into what’s in store for reinforcement learning. By the end of this book, you will be equipped with the skills you need to solve reinforcement learning problems using Q-learning algorithms with OpenAI Gym, Keras, and TensorFlow.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Q-Learning: A Roadmap
6
Section 2: Building and Optimizing Q-Learning Agents
9
Section 3: Advanced Q-Learning Challenges with Keras, TensorFlow, and OpenAI Gym

Key concepts in RL

Here, we'll go over some of the most important concepts that we'll need to bear in mind throughout our study of RL. We'll focus heavily on topics that are specific to Q-learning, but we'll also explore topics relating to other branches of RL, such as the related algorithm SARSA and policy-based RL algorithms.

Value-based versus policy-based iteration

We'll be using value-based iteration for the projects in this book. The description of the Bellman equation given previously offers a very high-level understanding of how value-based iteration works. The main difference is that in value-based iteration, the agent learns the expected reward value of each state-action pair, and in policy...