Communication for Improving Policy Computation in Distributed POMDPs

Distributed Partially Observable Markov Decision Problems (POMDPs) are emerging as a popular approach for modeling multiagent teamwork where a group of agents work together to jointly maximize a reward function. Since the problem of finding the optimal joint policy for a distributed POMDP has been s...

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Published in:	Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: Proceedings, 3rd International Joint Conference, New York City, New York, 2004. pp. 1098 - 1105
Main Authors:	Nair, Ranjit, Roth, Maayan, Yohoo, Makoto
Format:	Conference Proceeding
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, DC, USA IEEE Computer Society 19.07.2004
Series:	ACM Conferences
Subjects:	Computing methodologies > Artificial intelligence > Distributed artificial intelligence > Cooperation and coordination Computing methodologies > Artificial intelligence > Distributed artificial intelligence > Multi-agent systems Mathematics of computing > Probability and statistics > Probabilistic representations > Markov networks Mathematics of computing > Probability and statistics > Stochastic processes > Markov processes Theory of computation > Theory and algorithms for application domains > Machine learning theory > Markov decision processes
ISBN:	9781581138641, 1581138644
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Distributed Partially Observable Markov Decision Problems (POMDPs) are emerging as a popular approach for modeling multiagent teamwork where a group of agents work together to jointly maximize a reward function. Since the problem of finding the optimal joint policy for a distributed POMDP has been shown to be NEXP-Complete if no assumptions are made about the domain conditions, several locally optimal approaches have emerged as a viable solution. However, the use of communicative actions as part of these locally optimal algorithms has been largely ignored or has been applied only under restrictive assumptions about the domain. In this paper, we show how communicative acts can be explicitly introduced in order to find locally optimal joint policies that allow agents to coordinate better through synchronization achieved via communication. Furthermore, the introduction of communication allows us to develop a novel compact policy representation that results in savings of both space and time which are verified empirically. Finally, through the imposition of constraints on communication such as not going without communicating for more than K steps, even greater space and time savings can be obtained.
Bibliography:	SourceType-Conference Papers & Proceedings-1 ObjectType-Conference Paper-1 content type line 25
ISBN:	9781581138641 1581138644
DOI:	10.5555/1018411.1018878