Solving Transition-Independent Multi-Agent MDPs with Sparse Interactions

Authors

  • Joris Scharpff Delft University of Technology
  • Diederik Roijers University of Amsterdam
  • Frans Oliehoek University of Amsterdam and University of Liverpool
  • Matthijs Spaan Delft University of Technology
  • Mathijs de Weerdt Delft University of Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v30i1.10405

Keywords:

Markov Decision Process, Transition-independent Multi-agent MDPs, Reward interactions, Conditional Return Graphs

Abstract

In cooperative multi-agent sequential decision making under uncertainty, agents must coordinate to find an optimal joint policy that maximises joint value. Typical algorithms exploit additive structure in the value function, but in the fully-observable multi-agent MDP (MMDP) setting such structure is not present. We propose a new optimal solver for transition-independent MMDPs, in which agents can only affect their own state but their reward depends on joint transitions. We represent these dependencies compactly in conditional return graphs (CRGs). Using CRGs the value of a joint policy and the bounds on partially specified joint policies can be efficiently computed. We propose CoRe, a novel branch-and-bound policy search algorithm building on CRGs. CoRe typically requires less runtime than available alternatives and finds solutions to previously unsolvable problems.

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Published

2016-03-05

How to Cite

Scharpff, J., Roijers, D., Oliehoek, F., Spaan, M., & de Weerdt, M. (2016). Solving Transition-Independent Multi-Agent MDPs with Sparse Interactions. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v30i1.10405

Issue

Section

Technical Papers: Planning and Scheduling