Reinforcement learning approach to control an inverted pendulum: A general framework for educational purposes.

Machine learning is often cited as a new paradigm in control theory, but is also often viewed as empirical and less intuitive for students than classical model-based methods. This is particularly the case for reinforcement learning, an approach that does not require any mathematical model to drive a system inside an unknown environment. This lack of intuition can be an obstacle to design experiments and implement this approach.