{"slug": "robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-online-policy-evaluation", "title": "Robust Data-Collection Policy Learning for Low-Variance Online Policy Evaluation", "summary": "Researchers at an undisclosed institution propose a double-loop gradient-based algorithm for learning behavior policies that reduce online policy evaluation variance in reinforcement learning while remaining robust to transition uncertainty. The method, detailed in arXiv:2608.24146v1, derives novel transition-variance gradient expressions and establishes global convergence guarantees, showing numerically that it is less sensitive to transition perturbations than existing approaches.", "body_md": "arXiv:2608.24146v1 Announce Type: new\nAbstract: In reinforcement learning policy evaluation, classic on-policy methods often suffer from high variance when estimating policy performance. To mitigate this issue, behavior policy search has been proposed to learn data-collecting policies tailored to reduce online evaluation variance. However, these approaches do not account for uncertainties in the transition functions. In practice, simulator transitions often differ from the real world due to modeling errors or approximation limitations. As a result, behavior policies trained in simulation may still yield high variance when deployed in real environments, leading to costly reliance on real-world evaluation samples. In this work, we propose a double-loop gradient-based algorithm for learning behavior policies that are both efficient and robust to transition uncertainty. Theoretically, we derive novel transition-variance gradient expressions and establish global convergence guarantees for the algorithm. Numerically, we demonstrate that our method is less sensitive to transition perturbations than existing approaches, providing supportive evidence for its practical utility.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-online-policy-evaluation", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-onli-hdc4", "published_at": "2026-08-26 04:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-26 04:44:03.634709+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["machine-learning"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-online-policy-evaluation", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-online-policy-evaluation.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-online-policy-evaluation.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/robust-data-collection-policy-learning-for-low-variance-online-policy-evaluation.jsonld"}}