Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) holds great potential for robot swarms, but the black-box nature of neural policies complicates strategic analysis, limiting multi-robot applications. Furthermore, complex swarm behaviors can surprisingly emerge from simple rewards without explicit aggregation incentives.
arXiv:2608.28046v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Collective behaviour in living systems is usually modelled as the outcome of a \emph{direct} social drive: agents are rewarded, or hard-wired, to ali...
By Gorka Mu\~noz-Gil, Andrea L\'opez-Incera, Vide Ramsten, Giovanni Volpe, Thomas M\"uller, Hans J. Briegel
arXiv:2402.03741v4 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Recent advancements in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) have opened up vast application prospects, such as swarm control of drones,...
By Oubo Ma, Yuwen Pu, Linkang Du, Yang Dai, Ruo Wang, Xiaolei Liu, Yingcai Wu, Shouling Ji
arXiv:2606. 24958v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Collective behavior arises when locally interacting units produce coordinated global organization, from synchronization in dynamical systems to task-relevant information flow on graphs.
By Ji Chen, Song Chen, Chengzhang Gong, Li Fan, Chao Xu
The paper introduces Hierarchical Reinforcement and Collective Learning (HRCL), a framework that combines multi‑agent reinforcement learning (MARL) with decentralized coordination. HRCL uses MARL at a high level to generate strategic guidance that limits the decision space for low‑level agents, enabling efficient short‑term coordination while considering long‑term effects. Experiments on synthetic, energy‑management, and drone‑swarm scenarios demonstrate faster convergence and significant reductions in system‑wide and individual costs compared to standalone MARL.
By Chuhao Qin, Evangelos Pournaras
arXiv:2606. 11274v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Rendezvous is a critical task for multi-agent systems, requiring agents to coordinate to meet at an unspecified location.
By Bocheng Li, Jingran Qiu, Lihao Zhao
arXiv:2607. 04972v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Deploying robot teams in the real world requires simultaneous adaptation to unseen environments, unknown partners, and varying team sizes, yet existing approaches often address these challenges in isolation under the closed-world assumption of fixed teammates.
By Yang Li, Feng Xue, Fan Mo, Yunhao Liu, Jianhong Wang, Ying Wen, Qingrui Zhang, Shaoshuai Mou, Wei Pan
arXiv:2606. 09610v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Cooperative object transportation is essential in numerous domains, including industrial to domestic services.
By Mohamed Sayed, Wolfram Burgard, Tanja Katharina Kaiser
arXiv:2607. 14093v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This paper presents a novel three level hierarchical learning architecture for autonomous UAV swarms performing search and rescue operations.
By Oleksii Bychkov
arXiv:2609.17325v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Biological cells can be viewed as individual, interacting agents whose collective dynamics give rise to adaptive behaviour at multiple levels of organi...
By Anatoly Belikov
arXiv:2609.06586v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: A shared reward gives agents a common objective, but leaves open when, how and even whether they must cooperate to succeed. We address these question...
By Yannick Molinghen, Hugo Charels, Tom Lenaerts
arXiv:2606. 12352v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Multi-robot collaboration allows robots to efficiently take on a wide range of tasks, from moving a couch through a doorway to assembling structures on a construction site.
By Ria Doshi, Tian Gao, Annie Chen, Chelsea Finn, Jeannette Bohg