From a system developer's perspective, designing a spoken dialogue system can be a time-consuming and difficult process. A developer may spend a lot of time anticipating how a potential user might interact with the system and then deciding on the most appropriate system response. These decisions are encoded in a dialogue strategy, essentially a mapping between anticipated user inputs and appropriate system outputs. To reduce the time and effort associated with developing a dialogue strategy, recent work has concentrated on modelling the development of a dialogue strategy as a sequential decision problem. Using this model, reinforcement learning algorithms have been employed to generate dialogue strategies automatically. These algorithms learn strategies by interacting with simulated users. Some progress has been made with this method but a number of important challenges remain. For instance, relatively little success has been achieved with the large state representations that are typical of real-life systems. Another crucial issue is the time and effort associated with the creation of simulated users. In this thesis, I propose an alternative to existing reinforcement learning methods of dialogue strategy development. More specifically, I explore how XCS, an evolutionary reinforcement learning algorithm, can be used to find dialogue strategies that cover large state spaces. Furthermore, I suggest that hand-coded simulated users are sufficient for the learning of useful dialogue strategies. I argue that the use of evolutionary reinforcement learning and hand-coded simulated users is an effective approach to the rapid development of spoken dialogue strategies. Finally, I substantiate this claim by evaluating a learned strategy with real users. Both the learned strategy and a state-of-the-art hand-coded strategy were integrated into an end-to-end spoken dialogue system. The dialogue system allowed real users to make flight enquiries using a live database for an Edinburgh-based airline. The performance of the learned and hand-coded strategies were compared. The evaluation results show that the learned strategy performs as well as the hand-coded one (81% and 77% task completion respectively) but takes much less time to design (two days instead of two weeks). Moreover, the learned strategy compares favourably with previous user evaluations of learned strategies.

[pt] No ambiente da Internet, as informações que desejamos frequentemente encontram-se em diferentes localidades. Algumas aplicações, para funcionarem corretamente, precisam manter cópias locais de parte dessas informações. Manter a consistência e a atualidade de uma base de dados, mais especificamente um conjunto de cópias de páginas web, é uma tarefa que vem sendo sistematicamente estudada. Uma abordagem possível a esse problema é a aplicação de técnicas de aprendizado por reforço, que utiliza técnicas de programação dinâmica e análise estocástica para obter uma boa política de agendamento de atualizações das cópias de páginas web. O presente trabalho tem por finalidade validar o uso de técnicas de aprendizado por reforço no problema em questão, assim como encontrar aspectos do problema que possam ser úteis na modelagem da solução empregada. / [en] In the Internet, the information we desire is usually spread over different locations. For some applications, it is necessary to maintain local copies of this information. Keeping consistency as well as freshness of a data base, or more specifically a set of internet web pages, is a task systematically studied. An approach to this problem is the use of reinforcement learning techniques, using dynamic programming and stochastic analysis to obtain a good rescheduling policy for the web pages copies. This work is proposed to validate the use of reinforcement learning techniques over this problem, as well as finding features of the problem useful to model the developed solution.

<div>Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a data-driven technique which is finding increasing application in the development of controllers for sequential decision making problems. Their wide adoption can be attributed to the fact that the development of these controllers is independent of the</div><div>knowledge of the system and thus can be used even when the environment dynamics are unknown. Model-Based RL controllers explicitly model the system dynamics from the observed (training) data using a function approximator, followed by using a path planning algorithm to obtain the optimal control sequence. While these controllers have been proven to be successful in simulations, lack of strong safety guarantees in the presence of noise makes them ill-posed for deployment on hardware, specially in safety critical systems. The proposed work aims at bridging this gap by providing a verification framework to evaluate the safety guarantees for a Model-Based RL controller. Our method builds upon reachability analysis to determine if there is any action which can drive the system into a constrained (unsafe) region. Consequently, our method can provide a binary yes or no answer to whether all the initial set of states are (un)safe to propagate trajectories from in the presence of some bounded noise.</div>

The consequences of traffic congestion include increased travel time, fuel consumption, and the number of crashes. Studies suggest that most traffic delays are due to nonrecurring traffic congestion. Adaptive traffic control using real-time data is effective in dealing with nonrecurring traffic congestion. Many adaptive traffic control algorithms used today are deterministic and prone to human error and limitation. Reinforcement learning allows the development of an optimal traffic control policy in an unsupervised manner. We have implemented a reinforcement learning algorithm that only requires information about the number of vehicles and the mean speed of each incoming road to streamline traffic in a four-way intersection. The reinforcement learning algorithm is evaluated against a deterministic algorithm and a fixed-time control schedule. Furthermore, it was tested whether reinforcement learning can be trained to prioritize emergency vehicles while maintaining good traffic flow. The reinforcement learning algorithm obtains a lower average time in the system than the deterministic algorithm in eight out of nine experiments. Moreover, the reinforcement learning algorithm achieves a lower average time in the system than the fixed-time schedule in all experiments. At best, the reinforcement learning algorithm performs 13% better than the deterministic algorithm and 39% better than the fixed-time schedule. Moreover, the reinforcement learning algorithm could prioritize emergency vehicles while maintaining good traffic flow.

A inteligência artificial não busca somente entender mas construir entidades inteligentes. A inteligência pode ser dividida em vários fatores e um deles é conhecido como aprendizado. A área de aprendizado de máquina visa o desenvolvimento de técnicas para aprendizado automático de máquinas, que incluem computadores, robôs ou qualquer outro dispositivo. Entre essas técnicas encontra-se o Aprendizado por Reforço, foco principal deste trabalho. Mais especificamente, o aprendizado por reforço relacional (ARR) foi investigado, que representa na forma relacional o aprendizado obtido através da interação direta com o ambiente. O ARR é bem interessante no campo de robótica, pois, em geral, não se dispôe do modelo do ambiente e se requer econômia de recursos utilizados. A técnica ARR foi investigada dentro do contexto de aprendizado de uma cabeça robótica. Uma modificação no algoritmo ARR foi proposta, denominada por ETG, e incorporada em uma arquitetura de controle de uma cabeça robótica. A arquitetura foi avaliada no contexto de um problema real não trivial: o aprendizado da atenção compartilhada. Os resultados obtidos mostram que a arquitetura é capaz de exibir comportamentos apropriados durante uma interação social controlada, através da utilização do ETG. Uma análise comparativa com outros métodos foi realizada que mostram que o algoritmo proposto conseguiu obter um desempenho superior na maioria dos experimentos realizados / The artificial Intelligence search not only understand but to build intelligent entities. The intelligence can be divided into several factors and one of them is known as learning. The area of machine learning aimed at the development techniques for automatic learning of machinery, including computers, robots or any other device. Reinforcement Learning is one of those techniques, main focus of this work. Specifically, the relational reinforcement learning was investigated, which is use relational representation for learning obtained through direct interaction with the environment. The relational reinforcement learning is quite interesting in the field of robotics, because, in general, it does not have the model of environment and economy of resources used are required. The relational reinforcement learning technique was investigated within the context of learning a robotic head. A change in the relational reinforcement learning algorithm was proposed, called TGE, and incorporated into an architecture of control of a robotic head. The architecture was evaluated in the context of a real problem not trivial: the learning of shared attention. The results show that the architecture is capable of displaying appropriate behavior during a social interaction controlled through the use of TGE. A comparative analysis was performed with other methods show that the proposed algorithm has achieved a superior performance in most experiments

A maioria das propostas de planejamento de rotas para robôs móveis não leva em conta a existência de soluções para problemas similares ao aprender a política para resolver um novo problema; e devido a isto, o problema de navegação corrente deve ser resolvido a partir do zero, o que pode ser excessivamente custoso em relação ao tempo. Neste trabalho é realizado o acoplamento do conhecimento prévio obtido de soluções similares, representado por uma política abstrata, a um processo de aprendizado por reforço. Além disto, este trabalho apresenta uma arquitetura para o aprendizado por reforço simultâneo, de nome ASAR, onde a política abstrata auxilia na inicialização da política para o problema concreto, e ambas as políticas são refinadas através da exploração. A fim de reduzir a perda de informação na construção da política abstrata é proposto um algoritmo, nomeado X-TILDE, que constrói uma política abstrata estocástica. A arquitetura proposta é comparada com um algoritmo de aprendizado padrão e os resultados demonstram que ela é eficaz em acelerar a construção da política para problemas práticos. / Most work in path-planning approaches for mobile robots does not take into account existing solutions to similar problems when learning a policy to solve a new problem, and consequently solves the current navigation problem from scratch, what can be very time consuming. In this work we couple a prior knowledge obtained from a similar solution to a reinforcement learning process. The prior knowledge is represented by an abstract policy. In addition, this work presents a framework for simultaneous reinforcement learning called ASAR, where the abstract policy helps start up the policy for the concrete problem, and both policies are refined through exploration. For the construction of the abstract policy we propose an algorithm called X-TILDE, that builds a stochastic abstract policy, in order to reduce the loss of information. The proposed framework is compared with a default learning algorithm and the results show that it is effective in speeding up policy construction for practical problems.

Um melhor uso da infraestrutura da rede de transporte é um ponto fundamental para atenuar os efeitos dos congestionamentos no trânsito. Este trabalho utiliza aprendizado por reforço multiagente (MARL) para melhorar o uso da infraestrutura e, consequentemente, mitigar tais congestionamentos. A partir disso, diversos desafios surgem. Primeiro, a maioria da literatura assume que os motoristas aprendem (semáforos não possuem nenhum tipo de aprendizado) ou os semáforos aprendem (motoristas não alteram seus comportamentos). Em segundo lugar, independentemente do tipo de classe de agentes e do tipo de aprendizado, as ações são altamente acopladas, tornando a tarefa de aprendizado mais difícil. Terceiro, quando duas classes de agentes co-aprendem, as tarefas de aprendizado de cada agente são de natureza diferente (do ponto de vista do aprendizado por reforço multiagente). Finalmente, é utilizada uma modelagem microscópica, que modela os agentes com um alto nível de detalhes, o que não é trivial, pois cada agente tem seu próprio ritmo de aprendizado. Portanto, este trabalho não propõe somente a abordagem de co-aprendizado em agentes que atuam em ambiente compartilhado, mas também argumenta que essa tarefa precisa ser formulada de forma assíncrona. Além disso, os agentes motoristas podem atualizar os valores das ações disponíveis ao receber informações de outros motoristas. Os resultados mostram que a abordagem proposta, baseada no coaprendizado, supera outras políticas em termos de tempo médio de viagem. Além disso, quando o co-aprendizado é utilizado, as filas de veículos parados nos semáforos são menores. / A better use of transport network infrastructure is a key point in mitigating the effects of traffic congestion. This work uses multiagent reinforcement learning (MARL) to improve the use of infrastructure and, consequently, to reduce such congestion. From this, several challenges arise. First, most literature assumes that drivers learn (traffic lights do not have any type of learning) or the traffic lights learn (drivers do not change their behaviors). Second, regardless of the type of agent class and the type of learning, the actions are highly coupled, making the learning task more difficult. Third, when two classes of agents co-learn, the learning tasks of each agent are of a different nature (from the point of view of multiagent reinforcement learning). Finally, a microscopic modeling is used, which models the agents with a high level of detail, which is not trivial, since each agent has its own learning pace. Therefore, this work does not only propose the co-learnig approach in agents that act in a shared environment, but also argues that this taks needs to be formulated asynchronously. In addtion, driver agents can update the value of the available actions by receiving information from other drivers. The results show that the proposed approach, based on co-learning, outperforms other policies regarding average travel time. Also, when co-learning is use, queues of stopped vehicles at traffic lights are lower.

The consequences of climate change are already noticeable in small island developing states. Road networks are crucial for a functioning society, and are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, floods, landslides and other effects of climate change. Road systems in small island developing states are therefore in special need of climate adaptation efforts. Climate adaptation of road systems also has to be cost-efficient since these small island states have limited economical resources. Recent advances in deep reinforcement learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, has proven that intelligent agents can achieve superhuman level at a number of tasks, setting hopes high for possible future applications of the algorithms. To investigate wether deep reinforcement learning is suitable for climate adaptation of road maintenance systems a simulator has been set up, together with three deep reinforcement learning agents, and two non-intelligent agents for performance comparisons. The results of the project indicate that deep reinforcement learning is suitable for use in intelligent road maintenance systems for climate adaptation in small island developing states.

Agentes que utilizam técnicas de Aprendizado por Reforço (AR) buscam resolver problemas que envolvem decisões sequenciais em ambientes estocásticos sem conhecimento a priori. O processo de aprendizado desenvolvido pelo agente em geral é lento, visto que se concretiza por tentativa e erro e exige repetidas interações com cada estado do ambiente e como o estado do ambiente é representado por vários fatores, a quantidade de estados cresce exponencialmente de acordo com o número de variáveis de estado. Uma das técnicas para acelerar o processo de aprendizado é a generalização de conhecimento, que visa melhorar o processo de aprendizado, seja no mesmo problema por meio da abstração, ao explorar a similaridade entre estados semelhantes ou em diferentes problemas, ao transferir o conhecimento adquirido de um problema fonte para acelerar a aprendizagem em um problema alvo. Uma abstração considera partes do estado e, ainda que uma única não seja suficiente, é necessário descobrir qual combinação de abstrações pode atingir bons resultados. Nesta dissertação é proposto um método para seleção de abstração, considerando o processo de avaliação da aprendizagem durante o aprendizado. A contribuição é formalizada pela apresentação do algoritmo REPO, utilizado para selecionar e avaliar subconjuntos de abstrações. O algoritmo é iterativo e a cada rodada avalia novos subconjuntos de abstrações, conferindo uma pontuação para cada uma das abstrações existentes no subconjunto e por fim, retorna o subconjunto com as abstrações melhores pontuadas. Experimentos com o simulador de futebol mostram que esse método é efetivo e consegue encontrar um subconjunto com uma quantidade menor de abstrações que represente o problema original, proporcionando melhoria em relação ao desempenho do agente em seu aprendizado / Agents that use Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques seek to solve problems that involve sequential decisions in stochastic environments without a priori knowledge. The learning process developed by the agent in general is slow, since it is done by trial and error and requires repeated iterations with each state of the environment and because the state of the environment is represented by several factors, the number of states grows exponentially according to the number of state variables. One of the techniques to accelerate the learning process is the generalization of knowledge, which aims to improve the learning process, be the same problem through abstraction, explore the similarity between similar states or different problems, transferring the knowledge acquired from A source problem to accelerate learning in a target problem. An abstraction considers parts of the state, and although a single one is not sufficient, it is necessary to find out which combination of abstractions can achieve good results. In this work, a method for abstraction selection is proposed, considering the evaluation process of learning during learning. The contribution is formalized by the presentation of the REPO algorithm, used to select and evaluate subsets of features. The algorithm is iterative and each round evaluates new subsets of features, giving a score for each of the features in the subset, and finally, returns the subset with the most highly punctuated features. Experiments with the soccer simulator show that this method is effective and can find a subset with a smaller number of features that represents the original problem, providing improvement in relation to the performance of the agent in its learning

In order to enable more widespread application of robots, we are required to reduce the human effort for the introduction of existing robotic platforms to new environments and tasks. In this thesis, we identify three complementary strategies to address this challenge, via the use of imitation learning, domain adaptation, and transfer learning based on simulations. The overall work strives to reduce the effort of generating training data by employing inexpensively obtainable labels and by transferring information between different domains with deviating underlying properties. Imitation learning enables a straightforward way for untrained personnel to teach robots to perform tasks by providing demonstrations, which represent a comparably inexpensive source of supervision. We develop a scalable approach to identify the preferences underlying demonstration data via the framework of inverse reinforcement learning. The method enables integration of the extracted preferences as cost maps into existing motion planning systems. We further incorporate prior domain knowledge and demonstrate that the approach outperforms the baselines including manually crafted cost functions. In addition to employing low-cost labels from demonstration, we investigate the adaptation of models to domains without available supervisory information. Specifically, the challenge of appearance changes in outdoor robotics such as illumination and weather shifts is addressed using an adversarial domain adaptation approach. A principal advantage of the method over prior work is the straightforwardness of adapting arbitrary, state-of-the-art neural network architectures. Finally, we demonstrate performance benefits of the method for semantic segmentation of drivable terrain. Our last contribution focuses on simulation to real world transfer learning, where the characteristic differences are not only regarding the visual appearance but the underlying system dynamics. Our work aims at parallel training in both systems and mutual guidance via auxiliary alignment rewards to accelerate training for real world systems. The approach is shown to outperform various baselines as well as a unilateral alignment variant.