Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates

Safety control is a fundamental problem in policy design. Basic reinforcement learning is effective at learning policy with goal-reaching property. However, it does not guarantee safety property of the learned policy. This paper integrates barrier certificates into actor-critic-based reinforcement l...

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Main Authors: Qingye Zhao, Yi Zhang, Xuandong Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2022-12-01
Series:Connection Science
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540091.2022.2151567
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author Qingye Zhao
Yi Zhang
Xuandong Li
author_facet Qingye Zhao
Yi Zhang
Xuandong Li
author_sort Qingye Zhao
collection DOAJ
description Safety control is a fundamental problem in policy design. Basic reinforcement learning is effective at learning policy with goal-reaching property. However, it does not guarantee safety property of the learned policy. This paper integrates barrier certificates into actor-critic-based reinforcement learning methods in a feedback-driven framework to learn safe policies for dynamical systems. The safe reinforcement learning framework is composed of two interactive parts: Learner and Verifier. Learner trains the policy to satisfy goal-reaching and safety properties. Since the policy is trained on training datasets, the two properties may not be retained on the whole system. Verifier validates the learned policy on the whole system. If the validation fails, Verifier returns the counterexamples to Learner for retraining the policy in the next iteration. We implement a safe policy learning tool SRLBC and evaluate its performance on three control tasks. Experimental results show that SRLBC achieves safety with no more than 0.5× time overhead compared to the baseline reinforcement learning method, showing the feasibility and effectiveness of our framework.
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spelling doaj.art-04bba19aafa14115b823278f19a094fd2023-09-15T10:48:01ZengTaylor & Francis GroupConnection Science0954-00911360-04942022-12-013412822284410.1080/09540091.2022.21515672151567Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificatesQingye Zhao0Yi Zhang1Xuandong Li2State Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing UniversityState Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing UniversityState Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing UniversitySafety control is a fundamental problem in policy design. Basic reinforcement learning is effective at learning policy with goal-reaching property. However, it does not guarantee safety property of the learned policy. This paper integrates barrier certificates into actor-critic-based reinforcement learning methods in a feedback-driven framework to learn safe policies for dynamical systems. The safe reinforcement learning framework is composed of two interactive parts: Learner and Verifier. Learner trains the policy to satisfy goal-reaching and safety properties. Since the policy is trained on training datasets, the two properties may not be retained on the whole system. Verifier validates the learned policy on the whole system. If the validation fails, Verifier returns the counterexamples to Learner for retraining the policy in the next iteration. We implement a safe policy learning tool SRLBC and evaluate its performance on three control tasks. Experimental results show that SRLBC achieves safety with no more than 0.5× time overhead compared to the baseline reinforcement learning method, showing the feasibility and effectiveness of our framework.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540091.2022.2151567safe reinforcement learningsafety controldynamical systemsbarrier certificatesneural networks
spellingShingle Qingye Zhao
Yi Zhang
Xuandong Li
Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
Connection Science
safe reinforcement learning
safety control
dynamical systems
barrier certificates
neural networks
title Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
title_full Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
title_fullStr Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
title_full_unstemmed Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
title_short Safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
title_sort safe reinforcement learning for dynamical systems using barrier certificates
topic safe reinforcement learning
safety control
dynamical systems
barrier certificates
neural networks
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540091.2022.2151567
work_keys_str_mv AT qingyezhao safereinforcementlearningfordynamicalsystemsusingbarriercertificates
AT yizhang safereinforcementlearningfordynamicalsystemsusingbarriercertificates
AT xuandongli safereinforcementlearningfordynamicalsystemsusingbarriercertificates