Learning Multi-Robot Coordination through Locality-Based Factorized Multi-Agent Actor-Critic Algorithm

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Main Authors: Shek, Chak Lam, Bedi, Amrit Singh, Basak, Anjon, Novoseller, Ellen, Waytowich, Nick, Narayanan, Priya, Manocha, Dinesh, Tokekar, Pratap
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Shek, Chak Lam
Bedi, Amrit Singh
Basak, Anjon
Novoseller, Ellen
Waytowich, Nick
Narayanan, Priya
Manocha, Dinesh
Tokekar, Pratap
author_facet Shek, Chak Lam
Bedi, Amrit Singh
Basak, Anjon
Novoseller, Ellen
Waytowich, Nick
Narayanan, Priya
Manocha, Dinesh
Tokekar, Pratap
contents In this work, we present a novel cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning method called \textbf{Loc}ality based \textbf{Fac}torized \textbf{M}ulti-Agent \textbf{A}ctor-\textbf{C}ritic (Loc-FACMAC). Existing state-of-the-art algorithms, such as FACMAC, rely on global reward information, which may not accurately reflect the quality of individual robots' actions in decentralized systems. We integrate the concept of locality into critic learning, where strongly related robots form partitions during training. Robots within the same partition have a greater impact on each other, leading to more precise policy evaluation. Additionally, we construct a dependency graph to capture the relationships between robots, facilitating the partitioning process. This approach mitigates the curse of dimensionality and prevents robots from using irrelevant information. Our method improves existing algorithms by focusing on local rewards and leveraging partition-based learning to enhance training efficiency and performance. We evaluate the performance of Loc-FACMAC in three environments: Hallway, Multi-cartpole, and Bounded-Cooperative-Navigation. We explore the impact of partition sizes on the performance and compare the result with baseline MARL algorithms such as LOMAQ, FACMAC, and QMIX. The experiments reveal that, if the locality structure is defined properly, Loc-FACMAC outperforms these baseline algorithms up to 108\%, indicating that exploiting the locality structure in the actor-critic framework improves the MARL performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_18816
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning Multi-Robot Coordination through Locality-Based Factorized Multi-Agent Actor-Critic Algorithm
Shek, Chak Lam
Bedi, Amrit Singh
Basak, Anjon
Novoseller, Ellen
Waytowich, Nick
Narayanan, Priya
Manocha, Dinesh
Tokekar, Pratap
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
In this work, we present a novel cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning method called \textbf{Loc}ality based \textbf{Fac}torized \textbf{M}ulti-Agent \textbf{A}ctor-\textbf{C}ritic (Loc-FACMAC). Existing state-of-the-art algorithms, such as FACMAC, rely on global reward information, which may not accurately reflect the quality of individual robots' actions in decentralized systems. We integrate the concept of locality into critic learning, where strongly related robots form partitions during training. Robots within the same partition have a greater impact on each other, leading to more precise policy evaluation. Additionally, we construct a dependency graph to capture the relationships between robots, facilitating the partitioning process. This approach mitigates the curse of dimensionality and prevents robots from using irrelevant information. Our method improves existing algorithms by focusing on local rewards and leveraging partition-based learning to enhance training efficiency and performance. We evaluate the performance of Loc-FACMAC in three environments: Hallway, Multi-cartpole, and Bounded-Cooperative-Navigation. We explore the impact of partition sizes on the performance and compare the result with baseline MARL algorithms such as LOMAQ, FACMAC, and QMIX. The experiments reveal that, if the locality structure is defined properly, Loc-FACMAC outperforms these baseline algorithms up to 108\%, indicating that exploiting the locality structure in the actor-critic framework improves the MARL performance.
title Learning Multi-Robot Coordination through Locality-Based Factorized Multi-Agent Actor-Critic Algorithm
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.18816