SCPO: Safe Reinforcement Learning with Safety Critic Policy Optimization
Jaafar Mhamed Shangding Gu
Incorporating safety is an essential prerequisite for broadening the
practical applications of reinforcement learning in real-world scenarios. To
tackle this challenge, Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs) are
leveraged, which introduce a distinct cost function representing safety
violations. In CMDPs' settings, Lagrangian relaxation technique has been
employed in previous algorithms to convert constrained optimization problems
into unconstrained dual problems. However, these algorithms may inaccurately
predict unsafe behavior, resulting in instability while learning the Lagrange
multiplier. This study introduces a novel safe reinforcement learning
algorithm, Safety Critic Policy Optimization (SCPO). In this study, we define
the safety critic, a mechanism that nullifies rewards obtained through
violating safety constraints. Furthermore, our theoretical analysis indicates
that the proposed algorithm can automatically balance the trade-off between
adhering to safety constraints and maximizing rewards. The effectiveness of the
SCPO algorithm is empirically validated by benchmarking it against strong
baselines.