K-nearest multi-agent reinforcement learning for collaborative tasks with variable number of agents

Abstract

K-nearest multi-agent reinforcement learning for collaborative tasks with variable numbers of agents. Centralized reinforcement learning is challenged by variable numbers of agents, whereas decentralized reinforcement learning is challenged by dependencies among agents' actions. An algorithm is disclosed that can address both of these challenges, among others, by grouping agents with their k-nearest agents during training and operation of a policy network. The observations of all k+1 agents in each group are used as the input to the policy network to determine the next action tor each of the k+1 agents in the group. When an agent belongs to more than one group, such that multiple actions are determined for the agent, an aggregation strategy can be used to determine the final action for that agent.