OffSim: Offline Simulator for Model-based Offline Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Abstract: Reinforcement learning algorithms typically utilize an interactive simulator (i.e., environment) with a predefined reward function for policy training. Developing such simulators and manually defining reward functions, however, is often time-consuming and labor-intensive. To address this, we propose an Offline Simulator (OffSim), a novel model-based offline inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) framework, to emulate environmental dynamics and reward structure directly from expert-generated state-action trajectories. OffSim jointly optimizes a high-entropy transition model and an IRL-based reward function to enhance exploration and improve the generalizability of the learned reward. Leveraging these learned components, OffSim can subsequently train a policy offline without further interaction with the real environment. Additionally, we introduce OffSim$^+$, an extension that incorporates a marginal reward for multi-dataset settings to enhance exploration. Extensive MuJoCo experiments demonstrate that OffSim achieves substantial performance gains over existing offline IRL methods, confirming its efficacy and robustness.