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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Theory and Application of Reward Shaping in Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

dc:description

We demonstrate our theory with two applications: a stochastic gridworld, and a bipedal walking control task. In all cases, the experiments uphold the analytical predictions; most notably that reducing the reward horizon implies faster learning. The bipedal walking task demonstrates that our reward shaping techniques allow a conventional reinforcement learning algorithm to find a good behavior efficiently despite a large state space with stochastic actions.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph.D.
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Science
Grantor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Year dc:date
2015

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Laud, Adam Daniel
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Gerald DeJong

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

Language dc:language
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
(MiAaPQ)AAI3130966
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81640

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Base URL
www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Laud, Adam Daniel. Theory and Application of Reward Shaping in Reinforcement Learning. Dissertation thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81640