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Reward Transfer from Inverse Reinforcement Learning: A Coupled Minimax Approach

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Computer Science > Machine Learning

arXiv:2605.27834 (cs)
[Submitted on 27 May 2026]

Title:Reward Transfer from Inverse Reinforcement Learning: A Coupled Minimax Approach

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Abstract:We study the transfer of rewards learned using inverse reinforcement learning from expert demonstrations in one environment to reinforcement learning in a new, different environment. This arises naturally when demonstrations are collected in a controlled environment. We formulate the problem as a joint system of Bellman equations across the source and target environments and develop minimax estimators for the target soft-$q$-function. Whereas a sequential solution approach first estimates the source reward and then plugs it into the target control problem, a coupled approach solves the source and target system of equations jointly. We show that, in contrast to the sequential approach, the coupled approach removes the first-order influence of source Bellman residual error. We characterize the local behavior of each approach, develop finite-sample soft-$q$-function error bounds, and prove regret guarantees for the resulting soft-control policy. An empirical investigation using a sepsis simulator validates the theoretical comparison.
Subjects: Machine Learning (cs.LG); Machine Learning (stat.ML)
Cite as: arXiv:2605.27834 [cs.LG]
  (or arXiv:2605.27834v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.27834
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history

From: Guang-Yuan Hao [view email]
[v1] Wed, 27 May 2026 01:46:20 UTC (237 KB)
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