Think How Your Teammates Think: Active Inference Can Benefit Decentralized Execution

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wu, Hao, Song, Shoucheng, Yao, Chang, Han, Sheng, Wan, Huaiyu, Lin, Youfang, Lv, Kai
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866917100482723840
author Wu, Hao
Song, Shoucheng
Yao, Chang
Han, Sheng
Wan, Huaiyu
Lin, Youfang
Lv, Kai
author_facet Wu, Hao
Song, Shoucheng
Yao, Chang
Han, Sheng
Wan, Huaiyu
Lin, Youfang
Lv, Kai
contents In multi-agent systems, explicit cognition of teammates' decision logic serves as a critical factor in facilitating coordination. Communication (i.e., ``\textit{Tell}'') can assist in the cognitive development process by information dissemination, yet it is inevitably subject to real-world constraints such as noise, latency, and attacks. Therefore, building the understanding of teammates' decisions without communication remains challenging. To address this, we propose a novel non-communication MARL framework that realizes the construction of cognition through local observation-based modeling (i.e., \textit{``Think''}). Our framework enables agents to model teammates' \textbf{active inference} process. At first, the proposed method produces three teammate portraits: perception-belief-action. Specifically, we model the teammate's decision process as follows: 1) Perception: observing environments; 2) Belief: forming beliefs; 3) Action: making decisions. Then, we selectively integrate the belief portrait into the decision process based on the accuracy and relevance of the perception portrait. This enables the selection of cooperative teammates and facilitates effective collaboration. Extensive experiments on the SMAC, SMACv2, MPE, and GRF benchmarks demonstrate the superior performance of our method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_18761
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Think How Your Teammates Think: Active Inference Can Benefit Decentralized Execution
Wu, Hao
Song, Shoucheng
Yao, Chang
Han, Sheng
Wan, Huaiyu
Lin, Youfang
Lv, Kai
Multiagent Systems
In multi-agent systems, explicit cognition of teammates' decision logic serves as a critical factor in facilitating coordination. Communication (i.e., ``\textit{Tell}'') can assist in the cognitive development process by information dissemination, yet it is inevitably subject to real-world constraints such as noise, latency, and attacks. Therefore, building the understanding of teammates' decisions without communication remains challenging. To address this, we propose a novel non-communication MARL framework that realizes the construction of cognition through local observation-based modeling (i.e., \textit{``Think''}). Our framework enables agents to model teammates' \textbf{active inference} process. At first, the proposed method produces three teammate portraits: perception-belief-action. Specifically, we model the teammate's decision process as follows: 1) Perception: observing environments; 2) Belief: forming beliefs; 3) Action: making decisions. Then, we selectively integrate the belief portrait into the decision process based on the accuracy and relevance of the perception portrait. This enables the selection of cooperative teammates and facilitates effective collaboration. Extensive experiments on the SMAC, SMACv2, MPE, and GRF benchmarks demonstrate the superior performance of our method.
title Think How Your Teammates Think: Active Inference Can Benefit Decentralized Execution
topic Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18761