Q-Learning — a simplistic overview
Let’s say that a robot has to cross a maze and reach the end
point. There are mines, and the robot can only move one tile
at a time. If the robot steps onto a mine, the robot is dead.
The robot has to reach the end point in the shortest time
possible.
The scoring/reward system is as below:
1. The robot loses 1 point at each step. This is done so that the
robot takes the shortest path and reaches the goal as fast as
possible.
2. If the robot steps on a mine, the point loss is 100 and the game
ends.
3. If the robot gets power ⚡️, it gains 1 point.
4. If the robot reaches the end goal, the robot gets 100 points.
Now, the obvious question is: How do we train a robot to
reach the end goal with the shortest path without stepping on a
mine?
So, how do we solve this?
Introducing the Q-Table
Q-Table is just a fancy name for a simple lookup table where
we calculate the maximum expected future rewards for action
at each state. Basically, this table will guide us to the best
action at each state.
There will be four numbers of actions at each non-edge tile.
When a robot is at a state it can either move up or down or
right or left.
So, let’s model this environment in our Q-Table.
In the Q-Table, the columns are the actions and the rows are
the states.
Each Q-table score will be the maximum expected future
reward that the robot will get if it takes that action at that
state. This is an iterative process, as we need to improve the
Q-Table at each iteration.
But the questions are:
How do we calculate the values of the Q-table?
Are the values available or predefined?
To learn each value of the Q-table, we use the Q-Learning
algorithm.
Mathematics: the Q-Learning algorithm
Q-function
The Q-function uses the Bellman equation and takes two
inputs: state (s) and action (a).
Using the above function, we get the values of Q for the cells
in the table.
When we start, all the values in the Q-table are zeros.
There is an iterative process of updating the values. As we
start to explore the environment, the Q-function gives us
better and better approximations by continuously updating the
Q-values in the table.
Now, let’s understand how the updating takes place.
Introducing the Q-learning algorithm process
Each of the colored boxes is one step. Let’s understand each
of these steps in detail.
Step 1: initialize the Q-Table
We will first build a Q-table. There are n columns, where n=
number of actions. There are m rows, where m= number of
states. We will initialise the values at 0.
In our robot example, we have four actions (a=4) and five
states (s=5). So we will build a table with four columns and
five rows.
Steps 2 and 3: choose and perform an action
This combination of steps is done for an undefined amount of
time. This means that this step runs until the time we stop the
training, or the training loop stops as defined in the code.
We will choose an action (a) in the state (s) based on the Q-
Table. But, as mentioned earlier, when the episode initially
starts, every Q-value is 0.
So now the concept of exploration and exploitation trade-off
comes into play. This article has more details.
We’ll use something called the epsilon greedy strategy.
In the beginning, the epsilon rates will be higher. The robot
will explore the environment and randomly choose actions.
The logic behind this is that the robot does not know anything
about the environment.
As the robot explores the environment, the epsilon rate
decreases and the robot starts to exploit the environment.
During the process of exploration, the robot progressively
becomes more confident in estimating the Q-values.
For the robot example, there are four actions to choose from:
up, down, left, and right. We are starting the training now —
our robot knows nothing about the environment. So the robot
chooses a random action, say right.
We can now update the Q-values for being at the start and
moving right using the Bellman equation.
Steps 4 and 5: evaluate
Now we have taken an action and observed an outcome and
reward.We need to update the function Q(s,a).
In the case of the robot game, to reiterate the scoring/reward
structure is:
power = +1
mine = -100
end = +100
We will repeat this again and again until the learning is
stopped. In this way the Q-Table will be updated.
Python implementation of Q-Learning
The concept and code implementation are explained in my
video.
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videos : ADL .
At last…let us recap
Q-Learning is a value-based reinforcement learning algorithm
which is used to find the optimal action-selection policy using
a Q function.
Our goal is to maximize the value function Q.
The Q table helps us to find the best action for each state.
It helps to maximize the expected reward by selecting the best
of all possible actions.
Q(state, action) returns the expected future reward of that
action at that state.
This function can be estimated using Q-Learning, which
iteratively updates Q(s,a) using the Bellman equation.
Initially we explore the environment and update the Q-Table.
When the Q-Table is ready, the agent will start to exploit the
environment and start taking better actions.
SARSA is an on-policy algorithm where, in the current state, S
an action, A is taken and the agent gets a reward, R and ends up
in next state, S1 and takes action, A1 in S1. Therefore, the tuple
(S, A, R, S1, A1) stands for the acronym SARSA.
It is called an on-policy algorithm because it updates the policy
based on actions taken.
SARSA vs Q-learning
The difference between these two algorithms is
that SARSA chooses an action following the same current
policy and updates its Q-values whereas Q-learning chooses
the greedy action, that is, the action that gives the maximum Q-
value for the state, that is, it follows an optimal policy.
Basically, the Q-value is updated taking into account the action,
A1 performed in the state, S1 in SARSA as opposed to Q-
learning where the action with the highest Q-value in the next
state, S1 is used to update Q-table.
