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Bernd Frauenknecht

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Published work

3 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Biased Dreams: Limitations to Epistemic Uncertainty Quantification in Latent Space Models

Model-Based Reinforcement Learning distinguishes between physical dynamics models operating on proprioceptive inputs and latent dynamics models operating on high-dimensional image observations. A prominent latent approach is the Recurrent State Space Model used in the Dreamer family. While epistemic uncertainty quantification to inform exploration and mitigate model exploitation is well established for physical dynamics models, its transfer to latent dynamics models has received limited scrutiny. We empirically demonstrate that latent transitions are biased toward well-represented regions of latent space, exhibiting an attractor behavior that can deviate from true environment dynamics. As a result, discrepancies in environment dynamics may not manifest in latent space, undermining the reliability of epistemic uncertainty estimates. Because these attractors often lie in high-reward regions, latent rollouts systematically overestimate predicted rewards. Our findings highlight key limitations of epistemic uncertainty estimation in latent dynamics models and motivate more critical evaluation of this method.

preprint2026arXiv

Dyna-Style Safety Augmented Reinforcement Learning: Staying Safe in the Face of Uncertainty

Safety remains an open problem in reinforcement learning (RL), especially during training. While safety filters are promising to address safe exploration, they are generally poorly suited for high-dimensional systems with unknown dynamics. We propose Dyna-style Safety Augmented Reinforcement Learning (Dyna-SAuR), a novel algorithm that learns both a scalable safety filter and a control policy using a learned uncertainty-aware dynamics model, while requiring minimal domain knowledge. The filter avoids failures and high uncertainty regions. Thus, better models expand the set of safe and certain states, reducing filter conservatism. We present the effectiveness of Dyna-SAuR on goal-reaching CartPole as well as MuJoCo Walker, reducing failures compared to state-of-the-art methods by 2 orders of magnitude.

preprint2026arXiv

Uncertainty-Aware Predictive Safety Filters for Probabilistic Neural Network Dynamics

Predictive safety filters (PSFs) leverage model predictive control to enforce constraint satisfaction during deep reinforcement learning (RL) exploration, yet their reliance on first-principles models or Gaussian processes limits scalability and broader applicability. Meanwhile, model-based RL (MBRL) methods routinely employ probabilistic ensemble (PE) neural networks to capture complex, high-dimensional dynamics from data with minimal prior knowledge. However, existing attempts to integrate PEs into PSFs lack rigorous uncertainty quantification. We introduce the Uncertainty-Aware Predictive Safety Filter (UPSi), a PSF that provides rigorous safety predictions using PE dynamics models by formulating future outcomes as reachable sets. UPSi introduces an explicit certainty constraint that prevents model exploitation and integrates seamlessly into common MBRL frameworks. We evaluate UPSi within Dyna-style MBRL on standard safe RL benchmarks and report substantial improvements in exploration safety over prior neural network PSFs while maintaining performance on par with standard MBRL. UPSi bridges the gap between the scalability and generality of modern MBRL and the safety guarantees of predictive safety filters.