Book Image

The Reinforcement Learning Workshop

By : Alessandro Palmas, Emanuele Ghelfi, Dr. Alexandra Galina Petre, Mayur Kulkarni, Anand N.S., Quan Nguyen, Aritra Sen, Anthony So, Saikat Basak
Book Image

The Reinforcement Learning Workshop

By: Alessandro Palmas, Emanuele Ghelfi, Dr. Alexandra Galina Petre, Mayur Kulkarni, Anand N.S., Quan Nguyen, Aritra Sen, Anthony So, Saikat Basak

Overview of this book

Various intelligent applications such as video games, inventory management software, warehouse robots, and translation tools use reinforcement learning (RL) to make decisions and perform actions that maximize the probability of the desired outcome. This book will help you to get to grips with the techniques and the algorithms for implementing RL in your machine learning models. Starting with an introduction to RL, youÔÇÖll be guided through different RL environments and frameworks. YouÔÇÖll learn how to implement your own custom environments and use OpenAI baselines to run RL algorithms. Once youÔÇÖve explored classic RL techniques such as Dynamic Programming, Monte Carlo, and TD Learning, youÔÇÖll understand when to apply the different deep learning methods in RL and advance to deep Q-learning. The book will even help you understand the different stages of machine-based problem-solving by using DARQN on a popular video game Breakout. Finally, youÔÇÖll find out when to use a policy-based method to tackle an RL problem. By the end of The Reinforcement Learning Workshop, youÔÇÖll be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to solve challenging problems using reinforcement learning.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Free Chapter
2
2. Markov Decision Processes and Bellman Equations

Introduction

The focus of this chapter is policy-based methods for RL. However, before diving into a formal introduction to policy-based methods for RL, let's spend some time understanding the motivation behind them. Let's go back a few hundred years when the globe was still mostly undiscovered and maps were incomplete. Brave sailors at that time sailed the great oceans with only indomitable courage and unyielding curiosity on their side. But they weren't completely blind in the vastness of the oceans. They looked up to the night sky for direction. The stars and planets in the night sky guided them to their destination. The night sky is viewed differently at different times of the year from different parts of the globe. This information, along with highly accurate maps of the night sky, guided these brave explorers to their destinations and sometimes to unknown, uncharted lands.

Now, you might question what this story has to do with RL at all. A map of the night sky...