University of Alberta Experiments in Off - Policy Reinforcement Learning with the GQ ( λ ) Algorithm

Off-policy reinforcement learning is useful in many contexts. Maei, Sutton, Szepesvari, and others, have recently introduced a new class of algorithms, the most advanced of which is GQ(λ), for off-policy reinforcement learning. These algorithms are the first stable methods for general off-policy learning whose computational complexity scales linearly with the number of parameters, thereby making them potentially applicable to large applications involving function approximation. Despite these promising theoretical properties, these algorithms have received no significant empirical test of their effectiveness in off-policy settings prior to the current work. Here, GQ(λ) is applied to a variety of prediction and control domains, including on a mobile robot, where it is able to learn multiple optimal policies in parallel from random actions. Overall, we find GQ(λ) to be a promising algorithm for use with large real-world continuous learning tasks. We believe it could be the base algorithm of an autonomous sensorimotor robot.