1997 Volume 12 Issue 1 Pages 78-89
Reinforcement learning is a kind of machine learning. It aims to adapt an agent to a given environment with a clue to rewards. Profit sharing (PS) can get rewards efficiently at an initial learning phase. However, it can not always learn an optimum policy that maximizes rewards per an action. Though Q-learning is guaranteed to obtain an optimum policy, it needs numerous trials to learn it. On Markov decision processes (MDPs), if a correct environment model is identified, we can derive an optimum policy by applying Policy Iteration Algorithm (PIA). As an efficient method for identifying MDPs, k-Certainty Exploration Method has been proposed. We consider that ideal reinforcement learning systems are to get some rewards even at an initial learning phase and to get mere rewards as the identification of environments proceeds. In this paper, we propose a unified learning system : MarcoPolo which considers both getting rewards by PS or PIA and identifying the environment by k-Certainty Exploration Method. MarcoPolo can realize any tradeoff between exploitation and exploration through the whole learning process. By applying MarcoPolo to an example, its basic performance is shown. Moreover, by applying it to Sutton's maze problem and its modified version, its feasibility on more realistic domains is shown.
