The Symmetry between Arms and Knapsacks: A Primal-Dual Approach for Bandits with Knapsacks
In this paper, we study the bandits with knapsacks (BwK) problem and develop a primal-dual based algorithm that achieves a problem-dependent logarithmic regret bound. The BwK problem extends the multi-arm bandit (MAB) problem to model the resource consumption associated with playing each arm, and the existing BwK literature has been mainly focused on deriving asymptotically optimal distribution-free regret bounds. We first study the primal and dual linear programs underlying the BwK problem. From this primal-dual perspective, we discover symmetry between arms and knapsacks, and then propose a new notion of sub-optimality measure for the BwK problem. The sub-optimality measure highlights the important role of knapsacks in determining algorithm regret and inspires the design of our two-phase algorithm. In the first phase, the algorithm identifies the optimal arms and the binding knapsacks, and in the second phase, it exhausts the binding knapsacks via playing the optimal arms through an adaptive procedure. Our regret upper bound involves the proposed sub-optimality measure and it has a logarithmic dependence on length of horizon $T$ and a polynomial dependence on $m$ (the numbers of arms) and $d$ (the number of knapsacks). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first problem-dependent logarithmic regret bound for solving the general BwK problem.
Code (0)
등록된 구현이 없습니다.
Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
Budgeted Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandits
We consider a budgeted combinatorial multi-armed bandit setting where, in every round, the algorithm selects a super-arm consisting of one or more arms. The goal is to minimize the total expected regret after all rounds …
Multi-Armed BanditsNon-stationary Bandits with Knapsacks
In this paper, we study the problem of bandits with knapsacks (BwK) in a non-stationary environment. The BwK problem generalizes the multi-arm bandit (MAB) problem to model the resource consumption associated with playin…
The Online Saddle Point Problem and Online Convex Optimization with Knapsacks
We study the online saddle point problem, an online learning problem where at each iteration a pair of actions need to be chosen without knowledge of the current and future (convex-concave) payoff functions. The objectiv…
Bandits with Knapsacks
Multi-armed bandit problems are the predominant theoretical model of exploration-exploitation tradeoffs in learning, and they have countless applications ranging from medical trials, to communication networks, to Web sea…
SchedulingNo-Regret is not enough! Bandits with General Constraints through Adaptive Regret Minimization
In the bandits with knapsacks framework (BwK) the learner has $m$ resource-consumption (packing) constraints. We focus on the generalization of BwK in which the learner has a set of general long-term constraints. The goa…
Multi-Armed Bandits