arXiv AI

A Theoretical Framework for Parallel Lifelong MAPF Using Group Decentralized Planning

The paper presents a theoretical analysis of the Rolling‑Horizon Collision Resolution (RHCR) framework for Lifelong Multi‑Agent Path Finding (L‑MAPF), proving its near‑optimality in a discounted MDP setting. Building on this, the authors introduce Group Decentralized RHCR (GD‑RHCR), which partitions agents via a transitive communication scheme and plans each partition in parallel, achieving similar optimality guarantees while reducing per‑plan computational cost. Experiments across various maps demonstrate that GD‑RHCR scales to higher agent counts with high throughput and lower cost compared to vanilla RHCR.

arXiv AI
3d ago

Belief-Aware Multi-Agent Path Finding under Map Uncertainty

The paper introduces Belief-Aware Multi-Agent Path Finding under Map Uncertainty, addressing the challenge that real-world environments can change unexpectedly. It proposes MAGIC, a framework that uses a Gaussian Markov Random Field and Gaussian Belief Propagation to update a shared belief about traversability online, allowing agents to infer the state of nearby unobserved locations. Experiments on standard MAPF benchmarks show that MAGIC reduces the executed sum of costs on 96.3% of instances, outperforming existing approaches across various planner families and large agent teams.

By Viraj Parimi, Shao-Hung Chan, Han Zhang, Jingkai Chen, Brian Williams
arXiv AI
Aug 25

SRMT: Shared Memory for Multi-agent Lifelong Pathfinding

The paper introduces the Shared Recurrent Memory Transformer (SRMT), a decentralized multi‑agent reinforcement learning framework that uses a global memory workspace for agents to broadcast and query each other’s learned states. SRMT is evaluated on the Partially Observable Multi‑Agent Pathfinding (PO‑MAPF) problem, showing that shared memory enables emergent coordination even with minimal reward guidance and outperforms existing baselines on the Bottleneck task and scales competitively on larger POGEMA maps. The authors provide open‑source code for training and evaluation on GitHub.

By Alsu Sagirova, Yuri Kuratov, Mikhail Burtsev
arXiv AI
Aug 19

Collective Counterfactual Planning: Coordination, Consent, and Verification under Representational Constraints

The paper introduces Collective Counterfactual Planning (CCP), a formal model describing how teams coordinate tasks that no single member can handle alone, constrained not by capability but by representational geometry. CCP defines four critical gates—exogenous implementation coalitions, conception, consent, and task-relative verification—that determine whether a team can achieve and legitimately recognize a conjunctive goal. The authors present the Collective Counterfactual Solvability (CCS) problem, separating geometric feasibility, executable attainment, and validated completion, and provide a sound and complete four-step solvability scheme under exact representation of relay closure.

By Chainarong Amornbunchornvej
arXiv AI
Aug 26

Pivot-and-Station Multi-Agent Path Finding: Solvability, Complexity, and Algorithms

The paper introduces Pivot-and-Station Multi-Agent Path Finding (PS‑MAPF), a variant of MAPF where a subset of agents must visit interchangeable pivots before all agents occupy anonymous stations. It provides a full solvability characterization: every instance on a 2‑edge‑connected graph is solvable, and for arbitrary connected graphs a structural effective‑distance measure relative to unoccupied vertices gives a necessary and sufficient condition. The authors prove that minimizing station‑makespan or station‑flowtime is NP‑hard even with a single pivot, and present three algorithms—a complete baseline, a SAT‑based optimal solver, and Pivot‑Prioritized Planning (PPP), which solves 74‑89% of benchmark instances with significantly lower makespan and flowtime than the baseline.

By Andrea Di Nezza, Mihir Patel, Fabio Fagnani, Sara Bernardini
arXiv AI
Jul 24

Compact Latent Coordination for Autonomous Vehicles at Unsignalized Intersections

arXiv:2607. 21488v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Coordinating autonomous vehicles at unsignalized intersections remains a critical challenge for multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) systems, which typically struggle with combinatorial action spaces, reliance on privileged information, or rigid agent designs.

By Gil Lifshits, Igal Bilik, Gilad Katz