Efficient solution and learning of robust factored MDPs

Conference item

Robust Markov decision processes (r-MDPs) extend MDPs by explicitly modelling epistemic uncertainty about transition dynamics. Learning r-MDPs from interactions with an unknown environment enables the synthesis of robust policies with provable (PAC) guarantees on performance, but this can require a large number of sample interactions. We propose novel methods for solving and learning r-MDPs based on factored state-space representations that leverage the independence between model uncertainty across system components. Although policy synthesis for factored r-MDPs leads to hard, non-convex optimisation problems, we show how to reformulate these into tractable linear programs. Building on these, we also propose methods to learn factored model representations directly. Our experimental results show that exploiting factored structure can yield dimensional gains in sample efficiency, producing more effective robust policies with tighter performance guarantees than state-of-the-art methods.

Authors: Schnitzer, Y; Abate, A; Parker, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
• Host title: Proceedings of the 40th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 43
• Pages: 36369-36377
• Publication date: 2026-03-14
• Acceptance date: 2025-11-07
• Event title: 40th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2026)
• Event location: Singapore
• Event website: https://aaai.org/conference/aaai/aaai-26/
• Event start date: 2026-01-20
• Event end date: 2026-01-27
• DOI: 10.1609/aaai.v40i43.40957
• EISSN: 2374-3468
• ISSN: 2159-5399
• ISBN-10: 1577359062
• ISBN-13: 9781577359067
• Language: English