Multi-Step Dyna Planning for Policy Evaluation and Control

Yao, Hengshuai, Bhatnagar, Shalabh, Diao, Dongcui, Sutton, Richard S., Szepesvári, Csaba

Neural Information Processing Systems 

We extend Dyna planning architecture for policy evaluation and control in two significant aspects. First, we introduce a multi-step Dyna planning that projects the simulated state/feature many steps into the future. Our multi-step Dyna is based on a multi-step model, which we call the {\em $\lambda$-model}. The $\lambda$-model interpolates between the one-step model and an infinite-step model, and can be learned efficiently online. Second, we use for Dyna control a dynamic multi-step model that is able to predict the results of a sequence of greedy actions and track the optimal policy in the long run.