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

Teaching a Smartcab to Drive Using Q-Learning

In this chapter, you will build and test your first Q-learning agent, a smartcab, using the Taxi-v2 environment from the OpenAI Gym package in Python.

Your agent is a self-driving taxicab whose job it is to collect passengers from a starting location and drop them off at their desired destination in the fewest steps possible. The taxi collects a reward when it drops off a passenger and gets penalties for taking other actions.

Gym provides the environment with all available states and actions and the attributes and functions you will need to use, and you provide the Q-learning algorithm that finds the optimal solution to the task.

Using Gym will allow you to build reinforcement learning models, compare their performance in a standardized setting, and keep track of updated versions. It will also allow others to track your work and...