Optimally Solving Simultaneous-Move Dec-POMDPs: The Sequential Central Planning Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Peralez, Johan, Delage, Aurèlien, Castellini, Jacopo, Cunha, Rafael F., Dibangoye, Jilles S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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_version_ 1866915100222291968
author Peralez, Johan
Delage, Aurèlien
Castellini, Jacopo
Cunha, Rafael F.
Dibangoye, Jilles S.
author_facet Peralez, Johan
Delage, Aurèlien
Castellini, Jacopo
Cunha, Rafael F.
Dibangoye, Jilles S.
contents The centralized training for decentralized execution paradigm emerged as the state-of-the-art approach to $ε$-optimally solving decentralized partially observable Markov decision processes. However, scalability remains a significant issue. This paper presents a novel and more scalable alternative, namely the sequential-move centralized training for decentralized execution. This paradigm further pushes the applicability of the Bellman's principle of optimality, raising three new properties. First, it allows a central planner to reason upon sufficient sequential-move statistics instead of prior simultaneous-move ones. Next, it proves that $ε$-optimal value functions are piecewise linear and convex in such sufficient sequential-move statistics. Finally, it drops the complexity of the backup operators from double exponential to polynomial at the expense of longer planning horizons. Besides, it makes it easy to use single-agent methods, e.g., SARSA algorithm enhanced with these findings, while still preserving convergence guarantees. Experiments on two- as well as many-agent domains from the literature against $ε$-optimal simultaneous-move solvers confirm the superiority of our novel approach. This paradigm opens the door for efficient planning and reinforcement learning methods for multi-agent systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_13139
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimally Solving Simultaneous-Move Dec-POMDPs: The Sequential Central Planning Approach
Peralez, Johan
Delage, Aurèlien
Castellini, Jacopo
Cunha, Rafael F.
Dibangoye, Jilles S.
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
I.2.6; I.2.11
The centralized training for decentralized execution paradigm emerged as the state-of-the-art approach to $ε$-optimally solving decentralized partially observable Markov decision processes. However, scalability remains a significant issue. This paper presents a novel and more scalable alternative, namely the sequential-move centralized training for decentralized execution. This paradigm further pushes the applicability of the Bellman's principle of optimality, raising three new properties. First, it allows a central planner to reason upon sufficient sequential-move statistics instead of prior simultaneous-move ones. Next, it proves that $ε$-optimal value functions are piecewise linear and convex in such sufficient sequential-move statistics. Finally, it drops the complexity of the backup operators from double exponential to polynomial at the expense of longer planning horizons. Besides, it makes it easy to use single-agent methods, e.g., SARSA algorithm enhanced with these findings, while still preserving convergence guarantees. Experiments on two- as well as many-agent domains from the literature against $ε$-optimal simultaneous-move solvers confirm the superiority of our novel approach. This paradigm opens the door for efficient planning and reinforcement learning methods for multi-agent systems.
title Optimally Solving Simultaneous-Move Dec-POMDPs: The Sequential Central Planning Approach
topic Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
I.2.6; I.2.11
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13139