Boosting deep reinforcement learning performance by combining off-line data and simulators

Abstract

Example implementations described herein involve an approach to address an imperfect simulator challenge using off-line data plus reward modification. The proposed solution is robust to simulator error, and therefore, it requires less maintenance in keeping the simulators updated. Even when the simulators are accurate, it is costly to keep them accurate over time. Moreover, compared to other robust reinforcement learning algorithms, the proposed approach does not assume the distribution of uncertainties in the simulator are known. Less complexity leads to fewer potential errors as well as lower computational cost during the training. Finally, the proposed approach has better performance compared to the state-of-the-art methods (higher overall cumulative rewards).