Paper ID: 2209.01820

Natural Policy Gradients In Reinforcement Learning Explained

W. J. A. van Heeswijk

Traditional policy gradient methods are fundamentally flawed. Natural gradients converge quicker and better, forming the foundation of contemporary Reinforcement Learning such as Trust Region Policy Optimization (TRPO) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). This lecture note aims to clarify the intuition behind natural policy gradients, focusing on the thought process and the key mathematical constructs.

Submitted: Sep 5, 2022