Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes

For reinforcement learning in environments in which an agent has access to a reliable state signal, methods based on the Markov decision process (MDP) have had many successes. In many problem domains, however, an agent suffers from limited sensing capabilities that preclude it from recovering a Markovian state signal from its perceptions. Extending the MDP framework, partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) allow for principled decision making under conditions of uncertain sensing. In this chapter we present the POMDP model by focusing on the differences with fully observable MDPs, and we show how optimal policies for POMDPs can be represented. Next, we give a review of model-based techniques for policy computation, followed by an overview of the available model-free methods for POMDPs. We conclude by highlighting recent trends in POMDP reinforcement learning.