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Deep reinforcement learning is an artificial intelligence technology that combines deep learning and reinforcement learning and has been widely applied in multiple fields. As a type of deep reinforcement learning algorithm, the A3C (Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic) algorithm can effectively utilize computer resources and improve training efficiency by synchronously training Actor-Critic in multiple threads. Inspired by the excellent performance of the A3C algorithm, this paper uses the A3C algorithm to solve the UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) collision avoidance planning problem in unknown environments. This collision avoidance planning algorithm can have the ability to plan in real-time while ensuring a shorter path length, and the output action space can meet the kinematic constraints of UUVs. In response to the problem of UUV collision avoidance planning, this paper designs the state space, action space, and reward function. The simulation results show that the A3C collision avoidance planning algorithm can guide a UUV to avoid obstacles and reach the preset target point. The path planned by this algorithm meets the heading constraints of the UUV, and the planning time is short, which can meet the requirements of real-time planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Microgrid is a new era in the power system and it has more scope of investigation on research. Due to an increase in demand and future expansion of the power system, analyzing the complexities of the network becomes a challenging task. Artificial intelligence plays a vital role in resolving such issues in a microgrid in various aspects. Owing to the rapid growth of periodical update in computational cost reduction, enhanced data analysis‐based algorithm artificial intelligence enters into new epoch Artificial Intelligence AI 2.0. Based on such approach, machine learning has been evolved as AI 2.0 initially. Now, it develops branches like deep learning, reinforcement learning, and a combination of both deep reinforcement learning algorithms. These algorithms are precise to attain higher priority in decision‐making under a complex network. This paper deals with numerous challenges of the above algorithm to state the significance of AI 2.0 and summarization of their application toward microgrid is useful to analyze the power system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperparameter optimization plays a significant role in the overall performance of machine learning algorithms. However, the computational cost of algorithm evaluation can be extremely high for complex algorithm or large dataset. In this paper, we propose a model-based reinforcement learning with experience variable and meta-learning optimization method to speed up the training process of hyperparameter optimization. Specifically, an RL agent is employed to select hyperparameters and treat the k-fold cross-validation result as a reward signal to update the agent. To guide the agent's policy update, we design an embedding representation called "experience variable" and dynamically update it during the training process. Besides, we employ a predictive model to predict the performance of machine learning algorithm with the selected hyperparameters and limit the model rollout in short horizon to reduce the impact of the inaccuracy of the model. Finally, we use the meta-learning technique to pre-train the model for fast adapting to a new task. To prove the advantages of our method, we conduct experiments on 25 real HPO tasks and the experimental results show that with the limited computational resources, the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art Bayesian methods and evolution method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Principles of typical motion planning algorithms are investigated and analyzed in this paper. These algorithms include traditional planning algorithms, classical machine learning algorithms, optimal value reinforcement learning, and policy gradient reinforcement learning. Traditional planning algorithms investigated include graph search algorithms, sampling-based algorithms, interpolating curve algorithms, and reaction-based algorithms. Classical machine learning algorithms include multiclass support vector machine, long short-term memory, Monte-Carlo tree search and convolutional neural network. Optimal value reinforcement learning algorithms include Q learning, deep Q-learning network, double deep Q-learning network, dueling deep Q-learning network. Policy gradient algorithms include policy gradient method, actor-critic algorithm, asynchronous advantage actor-critic, advantage actor-critic, deterministic policy gradient, deep deterministic policy gradient, trust region policy optimization and proximal policy optimization. New general criteria are also introduced to evaluate the performance and application of motion planning algorithms by analytical comparisons. The convergence speed and stability of optimal value and policy gradient algorithms are specially analyzed. Future directions are presented analytically according to principles and analytical comparisons of motion planning algorithms. This paper provides researchers with a clear and comprehensive understanding about advantages, disadvantages, relationships, and future of motion planning algorithms in robots, and paves ways for better motion planning algorithms in academia, engineering, and manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robotic motion planning in dense and dynamic indoor scenarios constantly challenges the researchers because of the motion unpredictability of obstacles. Recent progress in reinforcement learning enables robots to better cope with the dense and unpredictable obstacles by encoding complex features of the robot and obstacles into the encoders like the long-short term memory (LSTM). Then these features are learned by the robot using reinforcement learning algorithms, such as the deep Q network and asynchronous advantage actor critic algorithm. However, existing methods depend heavily on expert experiences to enhance the convergence speed of the networks by initializing them via imitation learning. Moreover, those approaches based on LSTM to encode the obstacle features are not always efficient and robust enough, therefore sometimes causing the network overfitting in training. This paper focuses on the advantage actor critic algorithm and introduces an attention-based actor critic algorithm with experience replay algorithm to improve the performance of existing algorithm from two perspectives. First, LSTM encoder is replaced by a robust encoder attention weight to better interpret the complex features of the robot and obstacles. Second, the robot learns from its past prioritized experiences to initialize the networks of the advantage actor-critic algorithm. This is achieved by applying the prioritized experience replay method, which makes the best of past useful experiences to improve the convergence speed. As results, the network based on our algorithm takes only around 15% and 30% experiences to get rid of the early-stage training without the expert experiences in cases with five and ten obstacles, respectively. Then it converges faster to a better reward with less experiences (near 45% and 65% of experiences in cases with ten and five obstacles respectively) when comparing with the baseline LSTM-based advantage actor critic algorithm. Our source code is freely available at the GitHub (https://github.com/CHUENGMINCHOU/AW-PER-A2C). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For vehicle-to-network communications, handover (HO) management enables vehicles to maintain the connection with the network while transiting through coverage areas of different base stations (BSs). However, the high mobility of vehicles means shorter connection periods with each BS that leads to frequent HOs, hence raises the necessity for optimal HO decision making for high quality infotainment services. Machine learning is capable of capturing underlying pattern via data driven methods to find optimal solutions to complex problems, and much learning-based HO optimization research has been conducted focusing on specific network setups. However, attention still needs to be paid to the actual deployment aspect and standardized datasets or simulation environments for evaluation. This paper proposes a deep reinforcement learning-based HO algorithm using the input parameters that are configurable in the existing measurement report of cellular networks. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using the well-known network simulator ns-3 with its official LTE module. A realistic network setup in the city center of Glasgow (U.K.) is configured with vehicle trajectories generated by the routes mobility model using Google Maps Directions API. Evaluation results reveal that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the A3 RSRP baseline with an average of 25.72% packet loss reduction per HO, suggesting significant improvement in quality of service of phone call and video streaming, etc. The proposed algorithm also has a small implementation cost compared to some state-of-the-art and should be deployed by a software update to a local BS controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review presents a high-level overview of the uses of machine learning (ML) to address several challenges in spatial auditory display research, primarily using head-related transfer functions. This survey also reviews and compares several categories of ML techniques and their application to virtual auditory reality research. This work addresses the use of ML techniques such as dimensionality reduction, unsupervised learning, supervised learning, reinforcement learning, and deep learning algorithms. The paper concludes with a discussion of the usage of ML algorithms to address specific spatial auditory display research challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Film and television literature recommendation is an AI algorithm that recommends related content according to user preferences and records. The wide application in various APPs and websites provides users with great convenience. This article aims to study the Internet of Things and machine learning technology, combining deep learning, reinforcement learning, and recommendation algorithms, to achieve accurate recommendation of film and television literature. This paper proposes to use the ConvMF-KNN recommendation model to verify and analyze the four models of PMF, ConvM, ConvMF-word2vec, and ConvMF-KNN, respectively, on public datasets. Using the path information between vertices in bipartite graph and considering the degree of vertices, the similarity between items is calculated, and the neighbor item set of items is obtained. The experimental results show that the ConvMF-KNN model combined with the KNN idea effectively improves the recommendation accuracy. Compared with the accuracy of the PMF model on the MovieLens 100 k, MovieLens 1 M, and AIV datasets, the accuracy of the ConvMF model on the above three datasets is 5.26%, 6.31%, and 26.71%, respectively, an increase of 2.26%, 1.22%, and 7.96%. This model is of great significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology is recognized as a promising solution to area coverage problems (ACPs) and has been extensively studied recently. In this paper, we study the 3D irregular terrain surface coverage problem with a hierarchical UAV swarm. We first build the 3D model of a random irregular terrain and propose a geometric way to project the 3D terrain surface into many weighted 2D patches. Then we develop a two-level hierarchical UAV swarm architecture, including the low-level follower UAVs (FUAVs) and the high-level leader UAVs (LUAVs). For FUAVs, we design a coverage trajectory algorithm to carry out specific coverage tasks within patches based on the star communication topology. For LUAVs, we propose a swarm deep Q-learning (SDQN) reinforcement learning algorithm to select patches. Moreover, an observation history model based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and the mean embedding method is integrated into SDQN to address the communication limitation problems of LUAVs. The numerical results show that FUAVs can cover the entire area of each patch with little redundancies, and the total coverage time of the SDQN is less than that of existing methods, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reinforcement learning algorithms based on policy gradient may fall into local optimal due to gradient disappearance during the update process, which in turn affects the exploration ability of the reinforcement learning agent. In order to solve the above problem, in this paper, the cross-entropy method (CEM) in evolution policy, maximum mean difference (MMD), and twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (TD3) are combined to propose a diversity evolutionary policy deep reinforcement learning (DEPRL) algorithm. By using the maximum mean discrepancy as a measure of the distance between different policies, some of the policies in the population maximize the distance between them and the previous generation of policies while maximizing the cumulative return during the gradient update. Furthermore, combining the cumulative returns and the distance between policies as the fitness of the population encourages more diversity in the offspring policies, which in turn can reduce the risk of falling into local optimal due to the disappearance of the gradient. The results in the MuJoCo test environment show that DEPRL has achieved excellent performance on continuous control tasks; especially in the Ant-v2 environment, the return of DEPRL ultimately achieved a nearly 20% improvement compared to TD3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent 5G trials have demonstrated the usefulness of the Network Slicing concept that delivers customizable services to new and under-serviced industry sectors. However, user mobility’s impact on the optimal resource allocation within and between slices deserves more attention. Slices and their dedicated resources should be offered where the services are to be consumed to minimize network latency and associated overheads and costs. Different mobility patterns lead to different resource re-allocation triggers, leading eventually to slice mobility when enough resources are to be migrated. The selection of the proper triggers for resource re-allocation and related slice mobility patterns is challenging due to triggers’ multiplicity and overlapping nature. In this paper, we investigate the applicability of two Deep Reinforcement Learning based algorithms for allowing a fine-grained selection of mobility triggers that may instantiate slice and resource mobility actions. While the first proposed algorithm relies on a value-based learning method, the second one exploits a hybrid approach to optimize the action selection process. We present an enhanced ETSI Network Function Virtualization edge computing architecture that incorporates the studied mechanisms to implement service and slice migration. We evaluate the proposed methods’ efficiency in a simulated environment and compare their performance in terms of training stability, learning time, and scalability. Finally, we identify and quantify the applicability aspects of the respective approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) for sensing services, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) transmit their sensory data to terrestrial mobile devices over the unlicensed spectrum. However, the interference from surrounding terminals is uncontrollable due to the opportunistic channel access. In this paper, we consider a cellular Internet of UAVs to guarantee the Quality-of-Service (QoS), where the sensory data can be transmitted to the mobile devices either by UAV-to-Device (U2D) communications over cellular networks, or directly through the base station (BS). Since UAVs’ sensing and transmission may influence their trajectories, we study the trajectory design problem for UAVs in consideration of their sensing and transmission. This is a Markov decision problem (MDP) with a large state-action space, and thus, we utilize multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to approximate the state-action space, and then propose a multi-UAV trajectory design algorithm to solve this problem. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can achieve a higher total utility than policy gradient algorithm and single-agent algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topic modeling for short texts is a challenging and interesting problem in the machine learning and knowledge discovery domains. Nowadays, millions of documents published on the internet from various sources. Internet websites are full of various topics and information, but there is a lot of similarity between topics, contents, and total quality of sources, which causes data repetition and gives the user the same information. Another issue is data sparsity and ambiguity because the length of the short text is limited, which causes unsatisfactory results and give irrelevant results to end-users. All these mentioned issues in short texts made an interesting topic for researchers to use machine learning and knowledge discovery techniques to discover underlying topics from a massive amount of data. In this paper, we propose a combination of deep reinforcement learning (RL) and semantics-assisted non-negative matrix factorization model to extract meaningful and underlying topics from short document contents. The main objective of this work is to reduce the problem of repetitive information and data sparsity in short texts to help the users to get meaningful and relevant contents. Furthermore, our propose model reviews an issue of the Seq2Seq approach based on the reinforcement learning perspective and provides a combination of reinforcement learning and SeaNMF formulation using the block coordinate descent algorithm. Moreover, we compare different real-world datasets by using numerical calculation and present a couple of state-of-art models to get better performance on short text document topic modeling. Based on experimental results and comparative analysis, our propose model outperforms the state of art techniques in terms of short document topic modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual network embedding arranges virtual network services onto substrate network components. The performance of embedding algorithms determines the effectiveness and efficiency of a virtualized network, making it a critical part of the network virtualization technology. To achieve better performance, the algorithm needs to automatically detect the network status which is complicated and changes in a time-varying manner, and to dynamically provide solutions that can best fit the current network status. However, most existing algorithms fail to provide automatic embedding solutions in an acceptable running time. In this paper, we combine deep reinforcement learning with a novel neural network structure based on graph convolutional networks, and propose a new and efficient algorithm for automatic virtual network embedding. In addition, a parallel reinforcement learning framework is used in training along with a newly-designed multi-objective reward function, which has proven beneficial to the proposed algorithm for automatic embedding of virtual networks. Extensive simulation results under different scenarios show that our algorithm achieves best performance on most metrics compared with the existing state-of-the-art solutions, with upto 39.6% and 70.6% improvement on acceptance ratio and average revenue, respectively. Moreover, the results also demonstrate that the proposed solution possesses good robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Machine learning technologies are being integrated into robotic systems faster to enhance their efficacy and adaptability in dynamic environments. The primary goal of this research was to propose a method to develop an Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) that integrates Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), odometry, and artificial vision based on deep learning (DL). All are executed on a high-performance Jetson Nano embedded system, specifically emphasizing SLAM-based obstacle avoidance and path planning using the Adaptive Monte Carlo Localization (AMCL) algorithm. Two Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) were selected due to their proven effectiveness in image and pattern recognition tasks. The ResNet18 and YOLOv3 algorithms facilitate scene perception, enabling the robot to interpret its environment effectively. Both algorithms were implemented for real-time object detection, identifying and classifying objects within the robot's environment. These algorithms were selected to evaluate their performance metrics, which are critical for real-time applications. A comparative analysis of the proposed DL models focused on enhancing vision systems for autonomous mobile robots. Several simulations and real-world trials were conducted to evaluate the performance and adaptability of these models in navigating complex environments. The proposed vision system with CNN ResNet18 achieved an average accuracy of 98.5%, a precision of 96.91%, a recall of 97%, and an F1-score of 98.5%. However, the YOLOv3 model achieved an average accuracy of 96%, a precision of 96.2%, a recall of 96%, and an F1-score of 95.99%. These results underscore the effectiveness of the proposed intelligent algorithms, robust embedded hardware, and sensors in robotic applications. This study proves that advanced DL algorithms work well in robots and could be used in many fields, such as transportation and assembly. As a consequence of the findings, intelligent systems could be implemented more widely in the operation and development of AMRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a complex underwater environment, finding a viable, collision-free path for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a challenging task. The purpose of this paper is to establish a safe, real-time, and robust method of collision avoidance that improves the autonomy of AUVs. We propose a method based on active sonar, which utilizes a deep reinforcement learning algorithm to learn the processed sonar information to navigate the AUV in an uncertain environment. We compare the performance of double deep Q-network algorithms with that of a genetic algorithm and deep learning. We propose a line-of-sight guidance method to mitigate abrupt changes in the yaw direction and smooth the heading changes when the AUV switches trajectory. The different experimental results show that the double deep Q-network algorithms ensure excellent collision avoidance performance. The effectiveness of the algorithm proposed in this paper was verified in three environments: random static, mixed static, and complex dynamic. The results show that the proposed algorithm has significant advantages over other algorithms in terms of success rate, collision avoidance performance, and generalization ability. The double deep Q-network algorithm proposed in this paper is superior to the genetic algorithm and deep learning in terms of the running time, total path, performance in avoiding collisions with moving obstacles, and planning time for each step. After the algorithm is trained in a simulated environment, it can still perform online learning according to the information of the environment after deployment and adjust the weight of the network in real-time. These results demonstrate that the proposed approach has significant potential for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AlphaGo and its successors AlphaGo Zero and AlphaZero made international headlines with their incredible successes in game playing, which have been touted as further evidence of the immense potential of artificial intelligence, and in particular, machine learning. AlphaGo defeated the reigning human world champion Go player Lee Sedol 4 games to 1, in March 2016 in Seoul, Korea, an achievement that surpassed previous computer game-playing program milestones by IBM's Deep Blue in chess and by IBM's Watson in the U.S. TV game show Jeopardy. AlphaGo then followed this up by defeating the world's number one Go player Ke Jie 3-0 at the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, China in May 2017. Then, in December 2017, AlphaZero stunned the chess world by dominating the top computer chess program Stockfish (which has a far higher rating than any human) in a 100-game match by winning 28 games and losing none (72 draws) after training from scratch for just four hours! The deep neural networks of AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and all their incarnations are trained using a technique called Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS), whose roots can be traced back to an adaptive multistage sampling (AMS) simulation-based algorithm for Markov decision processes (MDPs) published in Operations Research back in 2005 [Chang, HS, MC Fu, J Hu and SI Marcus (2005). An adaptive sampling algorithm for solving Markov decision processes. Operations Research, 53, 126–139.] (and introduced even earlier in 2002). After reviewing the history and background of AlphaGo through AlphaZero, the origins of MCTS are traced back to simulation-based algorithms for MDPs, and its role in training the neural networks that essentially carry out the value/policy function approximation used in approximate dynamic programming, reinforcement learning, and neuro-dynamic programming is discussed, including some recently proposed enhancements building on statistical ranking & selection research in the operations research simulation community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an initial endeavor to bridge the gap between powerful Deep Reinforcement Learning methodologies and the problem of exploration/coverage of unknown terrains. Within this scope, MarsExplorer, an openai-gym compatible environment tailored to exploration/coverage of unknown areas, is presented. MarsExplorer translates the original robotics problem into a Reinforcement Learning setup that various off-the-shelf algorithms can tackle. Any learned policy can be straightforwardly applied to a robotic platform without an elaborate simulation model of the robot's dynamics to apply a different learning/adaptation phase. One of its core features is the controllable multi-dimensional procedural generation of terrains, which is the key for producing policies with strong generalization capabilities. Four different state-of-the-art RL algorithms (A3C, PPO, Rainbow, and SAC) are trained on the MarsExplorer environment, and a proper evaluation of their results compared to the average human-level performance is reported. In the follow-up experimental analysis, the effect of the multi-dimensional difficulty setting on the learning capabilities of the best-performing algorithm (PPO) is analyzed. A milestone result is the generation of an exploration policy that follows the Hilbert curve without providing this information to the environment or rewarding directly or indirectly Hilbert-curve-like trajectories. The experimental analysis is concluded by evaluating PPO learned policy algorithm side-by-side with frontier-based exploration strategies. A study on the performance curves revealed that PPO-based policy was capable of performing adaptive-to-the-unknown-terrain sweeping without leaving expensive-to-revisit areas uncovered, underlying the capability of RL-based methodologies to tackle exploration tasks efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has been an active research area in view of its capability in solving large-scale control problems. Until presently, many algorithms have been developed, such as Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG), Twin-Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3), and so on. However, the converging achievement of DRL often requires extensive collected data sets and training episodes, which is data inefficient and computing resource consuming. Motivated by the above problem, in this paper, we propose a Twin-Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient algorithm with a Rebirth Mechanism, Tetanic Stimulation and Amnesic Mechanisms (ATRTD3), for continuous control of a multi-DOF manipulator. In the training process of the proposed algorithm, the weighting parameters of the neural network are learned using Tetanic stimulation and Amnesia mechanism. The main contribution of this paper is that we show a biomimetic view to speed up the converging process by biochemical reactions generated by neurons in the biological brain during memory and forgetting. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated by a simulation example including the comparisons with previously developed DRL algorithms. The results indicate that our approach shows performance improvement in terms of convergence speed and precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the shipbuilding industry is an engineering-to-order industry, different types of products are manufactured according to customer requests, and each product goes through different processes and workshops. During the shipbuilding process, if the product is not able to go directly to the subsequent process due to physical constraints of workshop, it temporarily waits in a stockyard. Since the waiting process involves unpredictable circumstances, plans regarding time and space cannot be established in advance. Therefore, unnecessary movement often occurs when ship blocks enter or depart from the stockyard. In this study, a reinforcement learning approach was proposed to minimise rearrangement in such circumstances. For this purpose, an environment in which blocks are arranged and rearranged was defined. Rewards based on the simplified rules were logically defined, and simulation was performed for quantitative evaluation using the proposed reinforcement learning algorithm. This algorithm was verified using an example model derived from actual data from a shipyard. The method proposed in this study can be used not only to the arrangement problem of ship block stockyards but also to the various arrangement and allocation problems or logistics problems in the manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to operate an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) safely and efficiently in an interactive environment is challenging. A large amount of research has been devoted to improve the intelligence of a UAV while performing a mission, where finding an optimal maneuver decision-making policy of the UAV has become one of the key issues when we attempt to enable the UAV autonomy. In this paper, we propose a maneuver decision-making algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning, which generates efficient maneuvers for a UAV agent to execute the airdrop mission autonomously in an interactive environment. Particularly, the training set of the learning algorithm by the Prioritized Experience Replay is constructed, that can accelerate the convergence speed of decision network training in the algorithm. It is shown that a desirable and effective maneuver decision-making policy can be found by extensive experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) collaboration has great potential. To increase the intelligence and environmental adaptability of multi-UAV control, we study the application of deep reinforcement learning algorithms in the field of multi-UAV cooperative control. Aiming at the problem of a non-stationary environment caused by the change of learning agent strategy in reinforcement learning in a multi-agent environment, the paper presents an improved multiagent reinforcement learning algorithm—the multiagent joint proximal policy optimization (MAJPPO) algorithm with the centralized learning and decentralized execution. This algorithm uses the moving window averaging method to make each agent obtain a centralized state value function, so that the agents can achieve better collaboration. The improved algorithm enhances the collaboration and increases the sum of reward values obtained by the multiagent system. To evaluate the performance of the algorithm, we use the MAJPPO algorithm to complete the task of multi-UAV formation and the crossing of multiple-obstacle environments. To simplify the control complexity of the UAV, we use the six-degree of freedom and 12-state equations of the dynamics model of the UAV with an attitude control loop. The experimental results show that the MAJPPO algorithm has better performance and better environmental adaptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, automatic driving technology has become a hotspot in academia. It is necessary to provide a personalization of automatic driving decision for each passenger. The purpose of this paper is to propose a self-learning method for personalized driving decisions. First, collect and analyze driving data from different drivers to set learning goals. Then, Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient algorithm is utilized to design a driving decision system. Furthermore, personalized factors are introduced for some observed parameters to build a personalized driving decision model. Finally, compare the proposed method with classic Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithms. The results show that the performance of the personalized driving decision model is better than the classic algorithms, and it is similar to the manual driving situation. Therefore, the proposed model can effectively learn the human-like personalized driving decisions of different drivers for structured road. Based on this model, the smart car can accomplish personalized driving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For improving the response performance of engine, a novel aero-engine control method based on Deep Q Learning (DQL) is proposed. The engine controller based on DQL has been designed. The model free algorithm – Q learning, which can be performed online, is adopted to calculate the action value function. To improve the learning capacity of DQL, the deep learning algorithm – On Line Sliding Window Deep Neural Network (OL-SW-DNN), is adopted to estimate the action value function. For reducing the sensitivity to the noise of training data, OL-SW-DNN selects nearest point data of certain length as training data. Finally, the engine acceleration simulations of DQR and the Proportion Integration Differentiation (PID) which is the most commonly used as engine controller algorithm in industry are both conducted to verify the validity of the proposed method. The results show that the acceleration time of the proposed method decreased by 1.475 second while satisfied all of engine limits compared with the tradition controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, the Internet has become more and more popular, and more and more people use the Internet. A lot of new software has been developed on the Internet, so the network traffic has increased rapidly. A company once clearly stated that, in the future, the network volume in our country will reach nearly 5 zb. In addition, the network is comprehensively unified, and the learning of the Internet is strengthened by the way of suggesting errors. It is also necessary to learn from the external environment to make the finite value of the network as good as possible. Reinforcement learning is about solving many difficult problems. Use reinforcement learning to promote and change this state, so that the advantages of the network can be fully developed. Regarding the environment and actions at the time as the basic mapping requirements, and the network technology strategy can be best developed. In order to solve the QoS optimization scheme of the current mainstream heuristic algorithm in the software-defined network scene, the software-defined network QoS optimization algorithm is proposed. First, the network resources and status information are unified into the network model, and then, the long- and short-term memory network is used to improve the algorithm's flow perception ability. Finally, based on the deep reinforcement learning algorithm, a dynamic traffic scheduling strategy that satisfies the QoS objective is constructed. Among them, QoS refers to the main functions of the entire network system, especially for some new users, but for many old users, this system can represent a certain application, for example, whether a certain software can get timely, whether it can work smoothly when processing videos, and whether it can be interrupted when making a voice call for improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is a class of Machine Learning (ML) that combines Deep Learning with Reinforcement Learning and provides a framework by which a system can learn from its previous actions in an environment to select its efforts in the future efficiently. DRL has been used in many application fields, including games, robots, networks, etc. for creating autonomous systems that improve themselves with experience. It is well acknowledged that DRL is well suited to solve optimization problems in distributed systems in general and network routing especially. Therefore, a novel query routing approach called Deep Reinforcement Learning based Route Selection (DRLRS) is proposed for unstructured P2P networks based on a Deep Q-Learning algorithm. The main objective of this approach is to achieve better retrieval effectiveness with reduced searching cost by less number of connected peers, exchanged messages, and reduced time. The simulation results shows a significantly improve searching a resource with compression to k-Random Walker and Directed BFS. Here, retrieval effectiveness, search cost in terms of connected peers, and average overhead are 1.28, 106, 149, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through well-designed optimization paradigm and deep neural networks as feature extractor, deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms learn optimal policy on discrete and continuous action space. However, such capability is restricted by the low sampling efficiency. By inspecting the importance of feature extraction in DRL, we find that state feature learning is one of the key obstacles for sampling efficiently. To this end, we propose a new state representation learning scheme with adjacent state consistency loss (ASC loss). The loss is based on the hypothesis that the distance between adjacent states is smaller than that of far apart ones since scenes in videos generally evolve smoothly. We exploit ASC loss as an assistant of RL loss in the training phase to boost the state feature learning, and make evaluation on existing DRL algorithms as well as behavioral cloning algorithm. Experiments on Atari games and MuJoCo continuous control tasks demonstrate the effectiveness of our scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on autonomous driving based on deep reinforcement learning algorithms is a research hotspot. Traditional autonomous driving requires human involvement, and the autonomous driving algorithms based on supervised learning must be trained in advance using human experience. To deal with autonomous driving problems, this paper proposes an improved end-to-end deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm based on the convolutional block attention mechanism, and it is called multi-input attention prioritized deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (MAPDDPG). Both the actor network and the critic network of the model have the same structure with symmetry. Meanwhile, the attention mechanism is introduced to help the vehicles focus on useful environmental information. The experiments are conducted in the open racing car simulator (TORCS)and the results of five experiment runs on the test tracks are averaged to obtain the final result. Compared with the state-of-the-art algorithm, the maximum reward increases from 62,207 to 116,347, and the average speed increases from 135 km/h to 193 km/h, while the number of success episodes to complete a circle increases from 96 to 147. Also, the variance of the distance from the vehicle to the center of the road is compared, and the result indicates that the variance of the DDPG is 0.6 m while that of the MAPDDPG is only 0.2 m. The above results indicate that the proposed MAPDDPG achieves excellent performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robot grasping has become a very hot research field so that the requirements for robot operation are getting higher and higher. In previous research studies, the use of traditional target detection algorithms for grasping is often very inefficient, and this article is dedicated to improving the deep reinforcement learning algorithm to improve the grasping efficiency and solve the problem of robots dealing with the impact of unknown disturbances on grasping. Using the characteristic that deep reinforcement learning actively explores the unknown environment, a Gaussian parameter Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (Gaussian-DDPG) algorithm based on the Importance-Weighted Autoencoder (IWAE) is proposed to realize the robot's autonomous learning of the grasping task. Traditional coordinate positioning methods and deep learning methods have poor grasping effects for disturbed situations (such as the movement of the target object). The IWAE algorithm is used to compress the high-dimensional information of the original visual input to the hidden space and pass it to the deep reinforcement learning network as part of the state value. Based on the classic DDPG algorithm, it smoothly adds Gaussian parameters to improve the exploratory nature of the algorithm, dynamically sets the robot grasping space parameters to adapt to the workspace of multiple scales, and finally, realizes the accurate grasping of the robot. Relying on the possible position information deviation of the visual information, the control of the grasping position by the manipulator torque information is further optimized to improve the grasping efficiency of disturbed objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the exponential growth of data and the high demand for the analysis of large datasets, the MapReduce framework has been widely utilized to process data in a timely, cost-effective manner. It is well-known that the performance of MapReduce is limited by its default configuration parameters, and there are a few research studies that have focused on finding the optimal configurations to improve the performance of the MapReduce framework. Recently, machine learning based approaches have been receiving more attention to be utilized to auto configure the MapReduce parameters to account for the dynamic nature of the applications. In this article, we propose and develop a reinforcement learning (RL)-based scheme, named RL-MRCONF, to automatically configure the MapReduce parameters. Specifically, we explore and experiment with two variations of RL-MRCONF; one variation is based on the traditional RL algorithm and the second is based on the deep RL algorithm. Results obtained from simulations show that the RL-MRCONF has the ability to successfully and effectively auto-configure the MapReduce parameters dynamically according to changes in job types and computing resources. Moreover, simulation results show our proposed RL-MRCONF scheme outperforms the traditional RL-based implementation. Using datasets provided by MR-Perf, simulation results show that our proposed scheme provides around 50% performance improvement in terms of execution time when compared with MapReduce using default settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a battery swapping station (BSS), the stochastic operation of electric buses (EBs) and the uncertainty of electricity prices cause unnecessary economic losses. To minimize the operating costs of the BSS, this article applies the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) and proposes a BSS model to determine the optimal real-time charge/discharge power of the charging piles. The predictability of bus operation and the uncertainty of price can be directly captured from historical data without any assumption in the model. Moreover, deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG), as the DRL algorithm, is implemented in the model to simultaneously control multiple charging piles. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed approach can bring less operating cost than the existing benchmark control methods for a BSS while providing adequate batteries ready for swapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more businesses are running online, the scale of data centers is increasing dramatically. The task-scheduling operation with traditional heuristic algorithms is facing the challenges of uncertainty and complexity of the data center environment. It is urgent to use new technology to optimize the task scheduling to ensure the efficient task execution. This study aimed at building a new scheduling model with deep reinforcement learning algorithm, which integrated the task scheduling with resource-utilization optimization. The proposed scheduling model was trained, tested, and compared with classical scheduling algorithms on real data center datasets in experiments to show the effectiveness and efficiency. The experiment report showed that the proposed algorithm worked better than the compared classical algorithms in the key performance metrics: average delay time of tasks, task distribution in different delay time levels, and task congestion degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variable Speed Limit (VSL) control systems are widely studied as solutions for improving safety and throughput on urban motorways. Machine learning techniques, specifically Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods, are a promising alternative for setting up VSL since they can learn and react to different traffic situations without knowing the explicit model of the motorway dynamics. However, the efficiency of combined RL-VSL is highly related to the class of the used RL algorithm, and description of the managed motorway section in which the RL-VSL agent sets the appropriate speed limits. Currently, there is no existing overview of RL algorithm applications in the domain of VSL. Therefore, a comprehensive survey on the state of the art of RL-VSL is presented. Best practices are summarized, and new viewpoints and future research directions, including an overview of current open research questions are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric water heaters represent 14% of the electricity consumption in residential buildings. An average household in the United States (U.S.) spends about USD 400–600 (0.45 ¢/L–0.68 ¢/L) on water heating every year. In this context, water heaters are often considered as a valuable asset for Demand Response (DR) and building energy management system (BEMS) applications. To this end, this study proposes a model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) approach that aims to minimize the electricity cost of a water heater under a time-of-use (TOU) electricity pricing policy by only using standard DR commands. In this approach, a set of RL agents, with different look ahead periods, were trained using the deep Q-networks (DQN) algorithm and their performance was tested on an unseen pair of price and hot water usage profiles. The testing results showed that the RL agents can help save electricity cost in the range of 19% to 35% compared to the baseline operation without causing any discomfort to end users. Additionally, the RL agents outperformed rule-based and model predictive control (MPC)-based controllers and achieved comparable performance to optimization-based control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reinforcement learning, as a branch of machine learning, has been gradually applied in the control field. However, in the practical application of the algorithm, the hyperparametric approach to network settings for deep reinforcement learning still follows the empirical attempts of traditional machine learning (supervised learning and unsupervised learning). This method ignores part of the information generated by agents exploring the environment contained in the updating of the reinforcement learning value function, which will affect the performance of the convergence and cumulative return of reinforcement learning. The reinforcement learning algorithm based on dynamic parameter adjustment is a new method for setting learning rate parameters of deep reinforcement learning. Based on the traditional method of setting parameters for reinforcement learning, this method analyzes the advantages of different learning rates at different stages of reinforcement learning and dynamically adjusts the learning rates in combination with the temporal-difference (TD) error values to achieve the advantages of different learning rates in different stages to improve the rationality of the algorithm in practical application. At the same time, by combining the Robbins–Monro approximation algorithm and deep reinforcement learning algorithm, it is proved that the algorithm of dynamic regulation learning rate can theoretically meet the convergence requirements of the intelligent control algorithm. In the experiment, the effect of this method is analyzed through the continuous control scenario in the standard experimental environment of "Car-on-The-Hill" of reinforcement learning, and it is verified that the new method can achieve better results than the traditional reinforcement learning in practical application. According to the model characteristics of the deep reinforcement learning, a more suitable setting method for the learning rate of the deep reinforcement learning network proposed. At the same time, the feasibility of the method has been proved both in theory and in the application. Therefore, the method of setting the learning rate parameter is worthy of further development and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]