autonlab.org

Using Prediction to Improve Combinatorial Optimization Search (1997)

Justin Boyan, Andrew Moore

Tags

Optimization, Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

This paper describes a statistical approach to improving the performance of stochastic search algorithms for optimization. Given a search algorithm A, we learn to predict the outcome of A as a function of state features along a search trajectory. Predictions are made by a function approximator such as global or locally-weighted polynomial regression; training data is collected by Monte-Carlo simulation. Extrapolating from this data produces a new evaluation function which can bias future search trajectories toward better optima. Our implementation of this idea, STAGE, has produced very promising results on two large-scale domains.

Full text

Download (application/pdf, 231.2 kB)

Approximate BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{boyan-using,
    Year = {1997},
    Booktitle = {American Association for Artificial Intelligence C},
    Author = { Justin Boyan, Andrew Moore },
    Title = {Using Prediction to Improve Combinatorial Optimization Search}
}

Copyright 2010, Carnegie Mellon University, Auton Lab. All Rights Reserved.