Institute for Systems Research Technical Reports

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/4376

This archive contains a collection of reports generated by the faculty and students of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), a permanent, interdisciplinary research unit in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. ISR-based projects are conducted through partnerships with industry and government, bringing together faculty and students from multiple academic departments and colleges across the university.

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Author: search.filters.author.Fernandez-Gaucherand, EmmanuelSubject: search.filters.subject.optimal control

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    Risk-Sensitive Optimal Control of Hidden Markov Models: Structural Results
    (1996) Fernandez-Gaucherand, Emmanuel; Marcus, Steven I.; ISR
    We consider a risk-sensitive optimal control problem for hidden Markov models (HMM), i.e. controlled Markov chains where state information is only available to the controller via an output (message) process. Building upon recent results by Baras, James and Elliott, we report in this paper result of an investigation on the nature and structure of risk-sensitive controllers. The question we pose is: How does risk-sensitivity manifest itself in the structure of a controller? We present the dynamic programming equations for risk-sensitive control of HMMs and show a number of structural properties of the value function (e.g., concavity and piecewise linearity) and the optimal risk-sensitive controller, and compare these to the corresponding results for the risk- neutral case. Furthermore, we show that indeed the risk-sensitive controller and its corresponding information state converge to the known solutions for the risk-neutral situation, as the risk factor goes to zero. We also study the infinite and general risk aversion cases. In addition, we present a particular case study of a popular benchmark machine replacement problem.
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    Discrete-Time Controlled Markov Processes with Average Cost Criterion: A Survey
    (1991) Arapostathis, Aristotle; Borkar, Vivek S.; Fernandez-Gaucherand, Emmanuel; Ghosh, Mrinal K.; Marcus, Steven I.; ISR
    This work is a survey of the average cost control problem for discrete-time Markov processes. We have attempted to put together a comprehensive account of the considerable research on this problem over the past three decades. Our exposition ranges from finite to Borel state and action spaces and includes a variety of methodologies to find and characterize optimal policies. We have included a brief historical perspective of the research efforts in this area and have compiled a substantial yet not exhaustive bibliography. We have also identified several important questions which are still left open to investigation.