MFC-EQ: Mean-Field Control with Envelope Q-Learning for Moving Decentralized Agents in Formation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Lin, Qiushi, Ma, Hang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Lin, Qiushi
Ma, Hang
author_facet Lin, Qiushi
Ma, Hang
contents We study a decentralized version of Moving Agents in Formation (MAiF), a variant of Multi-Agent Path Finding aiming to plan collision-free paths for multiple agents with the dual objectives of reaching their goals quickly while maintaining a desired formation. The agents must balance these objectives under conditions of partial observation and limited communication. The formation maintenance depends on the joint state of all agents, whose dimensionality increases exponentially with the number of agents, rendering the learning process intractable. Additionally, learning a single policy that can accommodate different linear preferences for these two objectives presents a significant challenge. In this paper, we propose Mean-Field Control with Envelop $Q$-learning (MFC-EQ), a scalable and adaptable learning framework for this bi-objective multi-agent problem. We approximate the dynamics of all agents using mean-field theory while learning a universal preference-agnostic policy through envelop $Q$-learning. Our empirical evaluation of MFC-EQ across numerous instances shows that it outperforms state-of-the-art centralized MAiF baselines. Furthermore, MFC-EQ effectively handles more complex scenarios where the desired formation changes dynamically -- a challenge that existing MAiF planners cannot address.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_12062
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MFC-EQ: Mean-Field Control with Envelope Q-Learning for Moving Decentralized Agents in Formation
Lin, Qiushi
Ma, Hang
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
We study a decentralized version of Moving Agents in Formation (MAiF), a variant of Multi-Agent Path Finding aiming to plan collision-free paths for multiple agents with the dual objectives of reaching their goals quickly while maintaining a desired formation. The agents must balance these objectives under conditions of partial observation and limited communication. The formation maintenance depends on the joint state of all agents, whose dimensionality increases exponentially with the number of agents, rendering the learning process intractable. Additionally, learning a single policy that can accommodate different linear preferences for these two objectives presents a significant challenge. In this paper, we propose Mean-Field Control with Envelop $Q$-learning (MFC-EQ), a scalable and adaptable learning framework for this bi-objective multi-agent problem. We approximate the dynamics of all agents using mean-field theory while learning a universal preference-agnostic policy through envelop $Q$-learning. Our empirical evaluation of MFC-EQ across numerous instances shows that it outperforms state-of-the-art centralized MAiF baselines. Furthermore, MFC-EQ effectively handles more complex scenarios where the desired formation changes dynamically -- a challenge that existing MAiF planners cannot address.
title MFC-EQ: Mean-Field Control with Envelope Q-Learning for Moving Decentralized Agents in Formation
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.12062