Large Neighborhood Search for Multi-Agent Task Assignment and Path Finding with Precedence Constraints

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Parimi, Viraj, Williams, Brian C.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Parimi, Viraj
Williams, Brian C.
author_facet Parimi, Viraj
Williams, Brian C.
contents Many multi-robot applications require tasks to be completed efficiently and in the correct order, so that downstream operations can proceed at the right time. Multi-agent path finding with precedence constraints (MAPF-PC) is a well-studied framework for computing collision-free plans that satisfy ordering relations when task sequences are fixed in advance. In many applications, however, solution quality depends not only on how agents move, but also on which agent performs which task. This motivates the lifted problem of task assignment and path finding with precedence constraints (TAPF-PC), which extends MAPF-PC by jointly optimizing assignment, precedence satisfaction, and routing cost. To address the resulting coupled TAPF-PC search space, we develop a large neighborhood search approach that starts from a feasible MAPF-PC seed and iteratively improves it through reassignment-based neighborhood repair, restoring feasibility within each selected neighborhood. Experiments across multiple benchmark families and scaling regimes show that the best-performing configuration improves 89.1% of instances over fixed-assignment seed solutions, demonstrating that large neighborhood search effectively captures the gains from flexible reassignment under precedence constraints.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_28968
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Large Neighborhood Search for Multi-Agent Task Assignment and Path Finding with Precedence Constraints
Parimi, Viraj
Williams, Brian C.
Robotics
Multiagent Systems
Many multi-robot applications require tasks to be completed efficiently and in the correct order, so that downstream operations can proceed at the right time. Multi-agent path finding with precedence constraints (MAPF-PC) is a well-studied framework for computing collision-free plans that satisfy ordering relations when task sequences are fixed in advance. In many applications, however, solution quality depends not only on how agents move, but also on which agent performs which task. This motivates the lifted problem of task assignment and path finding with precedence constraints (TAPF-PC), which extends MAPF-PC by jointly optimizing assignment, precedence satisfaction, and routing cost. To address the resulting coupled TAPF-PC search space, we develop a large neighborhood search approach that starts from a feasible MAPF-PC seed and iteratively improves it through reassignment-based neighborhood repair, restoring feasibility within each selected neighborhood. Experiments across multiple benchmark families and scaling regimes show that the best-performing configuration improves 89.1% of instances over fixed-assignment seed solutions, demonstrating that large neighborhood search effectively captures the gains from flexible reassignment under precedence constraints.
title Large Neighborhood Search for Multi-Agent Task Assignment and Path Finding with Precedence Constraints
topic Robotics
Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28968