Risk Sensitive Path Integral Control for Infinite Horizon Problem Formulations

Abstract: Path Integral Control methods were developed for stochastic optimal control covering a wide class of finite horizon formulations with control affine nonlinear dynamics. Characteristic for this class is that the HJB equation is linear and consequently the value function can be expressed as a conditional expectation of the exponentially weighted cost-to-go evaluated over trajectories with uncontrolled system dynamics, hence the name. Subsequently it was shown that under the same assumptions Path Integral Control generalises to finite horizon risk sensitive stochastic optimal control problems. Here we study whether the HJB of infinite horizon formulations can be made linear as well. Our interest in infinite horizon formulations is motivated by the stationarity of the associated value function and their inherent dynamic stability seeking nature. Technically a stationary value function may ease the solution of the associated linear HJB. Second we argue this may offer an interesting starting point for off-linear Reinforcement Learning applications. We show formally that the discounted and average cost formulations are respectively intractable and tractable.