Multi-Agent System Identification with Nonlinear Sheaf Diffusion

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Anwer, Nivar, Riess, Hans, Hale, Matthew
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917482089938944
author Anwer, Nivar
Riess, Hans
Hale, Matthew
author_facet Anwer, Nivar
Riess, Hans
Hale, Matthew
contents Local interaction laws governing multi-agent systems can be difficult to recover from trajectory data, even when the dynamics are observed faithfully. In systems governed by a nonlinear sheaf Laplacian -- a generalization of the graph Laplacian accommodating heterogeneous state spaces and asymmetric communication channels -- the coordination law is encoded by edge potential functions whose gradients produce the inter-agent forces. Because trajectory observations record node-state evolution, they expose only the aggregate effect of the edge forces at each node: distinct interaction laws that agree at the node level are indistinguishable from trajectory data alone. We show that the fundamental obstruction to recovery is topological, measured by sheaf cohomology, and that unique recovery from an unconstrained function class is possible if and only if this cohomology vanishes. When the obstruction is nontrivial, we show that recovery within a finite-dimensional parameterized class is possible precisely when a data-dependent information matrix is positive definite. Experiments validate the theory and illustrate that accurate trajectory reproduction need not certify recovery of the underlying interaction law.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_11204
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-Agent System Identification with Nonlinear Sheaf Diffusion
Anwer, Nivar
Riess, Hans
Hale, Matthew
Systems and Control
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
Algebraic Topology
93B30 (Primary) 55N30, 05C50, 93A14, 62F10 (Secondary)
Local interaction laws governing multi-agent systems can be difficult to recover from trajectory data, even when the dynamics are observed faithfully. In systems governed by a nonlinear sheaf Laplacian -- a generalization of the graph Laplacian accommodating heterogeneous state spaces and asymmetric communication channels -- the coordination law is encoded by edge potential functions whose gradients produce the inter-agent forces. Because trajectory observations record node-state evolution, they expose only the aggregate effect of the edge forces at each node: distinct interaction laws that agree at the node level are indistinguishable from trajectory data alone. We show that the fundamental obstruction to recovery is topological, measured by sheaf cohomology, and that unique recovery from an unconstrained function class is possible if and only if this cohomology vanishes. When the obstruction is nontrivial, we show that recovery within a finite-dimensional parameterized class is possible precisely when a data-dependent information matrix is positive definite. Experiments validate the theory and illustrate that accurate trajectory reproduction need not certify recovery of the underlying interaction law.
title Multi-Agent System Identification with Nonlinear Sheaf Diffusion
topic Systems and Control
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
Algebraic Topology
93B30 (Primary) 55N30, 05C50, 93A14, 62F10 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11204