Infinite-state Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are essential in modeling and optimizing a wide variety of engineering problems. In the reinforcement learning (RL) context, a variety of algorithms have been developed to learn and optimize these MDPs. At the heart of many popular policy-gradient based learning algorithms, such as natural actor-critic, TRPO, and PPO, lies the Natural Policy Gradient (NPG) algorithm. Convergence results for these RL algorithms rest on convergence results for the NPG algorithm. However, all existing results on the convergence of the NPG algorithm are limited to finite-state settings. We prove the first convergence rate bound for the NPG algorithm for infinite-state average-reward MDPs, proving a $O(1/\sqrt{T})$ convergence rate, if the NPG algorithm is initialized with a good initial policy. Moreover, we show that in the context of a large class of queueing MDPs, the MaxWeight policy suffices to satisfy our initial-policy requirement and achieve a $O(1/\sqrt{T})$ convergence rate. Key to our result are state-dependent bounds on the relative value function achieved by the iterate policies of the NPG algorithm.

该研究证明了自然策略梯度算法在无限状态的平均奖励马尔可夫决策过程中的收敛速度，如果采用良好的初始策略进行初始化，则收敛速度为O(1/√T)。此外，针对大类排队马尔可夫决策过程，最大权重策略足以满足我们的初始策略要求并实现O(1/√T)的收敛速度。关键是根据NPG算法的迭代策略所达到的相对值函数，我们得出了这一结果。

自然策略梯度在无限状态平均奖励马尔可夫决策过程上的收敛性