Graph Based Deep Reinforcement Learning Aided by Transformers for Multi-Agent Cooperation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Elrod, Michael, Mehrabi, Niloufar, Amin, Rahul, Kaur, Manveen, Cheng, Long, Martin, Jim, Razi, Abolfazl
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Elrod, Michael
Mehrabi, Niloufar
Amin, Rahul
Kaur, Manveen
Cheng, Long
Martin, Jim
Razi, Abolfazl
author_facet Elrod, Michael
Mehrabi, Niloufar
Amin, Rahul
Kaur, Manveen
Cheng, Long
Martin, Jim
Razi, Abolfazl
contents Mission planning for a fleet of cooperative autonomous drones in applications that involve serving distributed target points, such as disaster response, environmental monitoring, and surveillance, is challenging, especially under partial observability, limited communication range, and uncertain environments. Traditional path-planning algorithms struggle in these scenarios, particularly when prior information is not available. To address these challenges, we propose a novel framework that integrates Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), and transformer-based mechanisms for enhanced multi-agent coordination and collective task execution. Our approach leverages GNNs to model agent-agent and agent-goal interactions through adaptive graph construction, enabling efficient information aggregation and decision-making under constrained communication. A transformer-based message-passing mechanism, augmented with edge-feature-enhanced attention, captures complex interaction patterns, while a Double Deep Q-Network (Double DQN) with prioritized experience replay optimizes agent policies in partially observable environments. This integration is carefully designed to address specific requirements of multi-agent navigation, such as scalability, adaptability, and efficient task execution. Experimental results demonstrate superior performance, with 90% service provisioning and 100% grid coverage (node discovery), while reducing the average steps per episode to 200, compared to 600 for benchmark methods such as particle swarm optimization (PSO), greedy algorithms and DQN.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_08195
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Graph Based Deep Reinforcement Learning Aided by Transformers for Multi-Agent Cooperation
Elrod, Michael
Mehrabi, Niloufar
Amin, Rahul
Kaur, Manveen
Cheng, Long
Martin, Jim
Razi, Abolfazl
Multiagent Systems
Artificial Intelligence
Mission planning for a fleet of cooperative autonomous drones in applications that involve serving distributed target points, such as disaster response, environmental monitoring, and surveillance, is challenging, especially under partial observability, limited communication range, and uncertain environments. Traditional path-planning algorithms struggle in these scenarios, particularly when prior information is not available. To address these challenges, we propose a novel framework that integrates Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), and transformer-based mechanisms for enhanced multi-agent coordination and collective task execution. Our approach leverages GNNs to model agent-agent and agent-goal interactions through adaptive graph construction, enabling efficient information aggregation and decision-making under constrained communication. A transformer-based message-passing mechanism, augmented with edge-feature-enhanced attention, captures complex interaction patterns, while a Double Deep Q-Network (Double DQN) with prioritized experience replay optimizes agent policies in partially observable environments. This integration is carefully designed to address specific requirements of multi-agent navigation, such as scalability, adaptability, and efficient task execution. Experimental results demonstrate superior performance, with 90% service provisioning and 100% grid coverage (node discovery), while reducing the average steps per episode to 200, compared to 600 for benchmark methods such as particle swarm optimization (PSO), greedy algorithms and DQN.
title Graph Based Deep Reinforcement Learning Aided by Transformers for Multi-Agent Cooperation
topic Multiagent Systems
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.08195