Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning: A Systematic Review and Future Directions

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning (EvoRL), highlighting its integration of evolutionary algorithms and reinforcement learning, discussing current challenges, and proposing future research directions for enhancing its capabilities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of EvoRL, analyzing its technological background, challenges, and future directions, serving as a guide for researchers and practitioners.

Findings

EvoRL combines EAs and reinforcement learning for complex problem-solving.

Challenges include scalability, sample efficiency, and robustness.

Future directions focus on self-adaptation, generalization, and interpretability.

Abstract

In response to the limitations of reinforcement learning and evolutionary algorithms (EAs) in complex problem-solving, Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning (EvoRL) has emerged as a synergistic solution. EvoRL integrates EAs and reinforcement learning, presenting a promising avenue for training intelligent agents. This systematic review firstly navigates through the technological background of EvoRL, examining the symbiotic relationship between EAs and reinforcement learning algorithms. We then delve into the challenges faced by both EAs and reinforcement learning, exploring their interplay and impact on the efficacy of EvoRL. Furthermore, the review underscores the need for addressing open issues related to scalability, adaptability, sample efficiency, adversarial robustness, ethic and fairness within the current landscape of EvoRL. Finally, we propose future directions for EvoRL, emphasizing research avenues that strive to enhance self-adaptation and self-improvement, generalization, interpretability, explainability, and so on. Serving as a comprehensive resource for researchers and practitioners, this systematic review provides insights into the current state of EvoRL and offers a guide for advancing its capabilities in the ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.