arXiv AI

Constrained Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in Imagination

The paper introduces CA‑MAMBA, a constrained multi‑agent reinforcement learning method that predicts cost within a world model, enabling most policy updates to occur in imagination. Compared to a strong model‑free baseline, CA‑MAMBA requires 10–20 times fewer interactions on the median SMAC configuration and achieves 2.8–12 times higher MAMuJoCo rewards for the same budget. In controlled experiments, aligning the model’s cost estimates with a cost‑blind learner reduces that learner’s cost by more than half and satisfies a strict continuous‑control limit, indicating that accurate cost estimation is not the limiting factor.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 20

Reinforced Planning with Latent World Models

Reinforced Planning with Latent World Models (RP1) is a novel method that learns to evaluate imagined outcomes via a critic and to improve multi‑step plans through an optimizer trained offline on world‑model roll‑outs. It is the first approach to fully learn plan improvement and can be attached to any pretrained latent world model. In experiments on visual navigation, arm reaching, and robotic manipulation, RP1 outperforms hand‑designed search algorithms, achieving near‑perfect success while using far fewer roll‑outs and running up to 67× faster than the strongest alternative.

By Armin Sommer, Jannik Schilling
arXiv AI
Sep 4

Imagine-then-Plan: Agent Learning from Adaptive Lookahead with World Models

The paper introduces Imagine-then-Plan (ITP), a framework that lets agents learn by interacting with a learned world model to generate multi-step imagined trajectories. ITP features an adaptive lookahead mechanism that balances ultimate goals with task progress, producing richer signals about future outcomes. Experiments on various benchmarks show that ITP outperforms existing baselines, and analyses suggest the adaptive lookahead improves reasoning for complex tasks.

By Youwei Liu, Jian Wang, Hanlin Wang, Beichen Guo, Wenjie Li
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Aug 19

Reinforced Planning with Latent World Models

Reinforced Planning with Latent World Models introduces RP1, a neural planner that learns to evaluate imagined outcomes via a critic and improve multi‑step plans through an optimizer trained offline on world‑model roll‑outs. Unlike existing planners that are hand‑designed or only inform policies, RP1 fully learns to refine plans and can be attached to any pretrained latent world model. In experiments on visual navigation, arm reaching, and robotic manipulation, RP1 outperforms hand‑designed search algorithms, achieving near‑perfect success while using 1,000× fewer roll‑outs and up to 67× faster inference.

arXiv AI
Oct 9

MA-JEPA: Joint-Embedding World Models for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

MA-JEPA is a stochastic world model designed for multi‑agent reinforcement learning that replaces observation reconstruction with joint‑embedding prediction. It uses a categorical latent state and a causal Transformer trained on posterior and action‑conditioned dynamics to generate imagined trajectories for actor‑critic learning. The model achieves strong performance on the SMAC benchmark, matching or surpassing the best reported mean win rates on half of the evaluated maps.

By Brandon Gary Kaplowitz, Osaze James Obahor, Christian Schroeder de Witt
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 15

More Methods, Better Agents? A Reality Check on Self-Distillation in Agentic Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2610.19789v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Self-distillation in agentic reinforcement learning has produced a growing number of methods. However, existing evaluations often reuse published bas...

By Linhao Zhong, Bozhen Fang, Xuehao Wang, Duochao Shi, Zekai Luo, Guangming Yao, Yi Yuan, Hao Chen, Jingdong Chen, Chunhua Shen
arXiv AI
Jun 2

Coordination Graphs for Constrained Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2606. 02337v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Constrained Multi-agent reinforcement learning (CMARL) faces two intertwined challenges: the joint action space grows exponentially with the number of agents, and additional requirements couple agents in ways that reward structure alone does not capture.

By Santiago Amaya-Corredor, Miguel Calvo-Fullana, Anders Jonsson
arXiv AI
Sep 1

BCPPO: Bachelier-Inspired Constrained Proximal Policy Optimization for Tail-Risk-Aware Safe Reinforcement Learning

BCPPO is a new variant of Proximal Policy Optimization that uses Bachelier-inspired cost‑prediction networks to generate a smooth penalty based on disagreement among critics. The method keeps temporal‑difference learning unchanged, applies a saturation‑aware controller to manage cost penalties, and deploys only the policy network. Across extensive experiments, BCPPO outperforms comparators in achieving higher mean returns while maintaining lower or comparable CVaR in all tested tasks.

By Dongsheng Hou, Yanqiao Chen, Yuhan Rui
arXiv AI
Sep 2

One Policy, Any Budget: Internalizing Budget-Aware Search via Reinforcement Learning

The paper introduces AnySearch, a reinforcement‑learning framework that trains a single policy to perform budget‑aware search for large language models under any budget constraint. The training proceeds in two phases: first, the agent learns with explicit budget state injection and structured reasoning prompts under linearly decaying budgets; second, the scaffold is removed and the agent adapts to randomly sampled budgets that match deployment conditions. The reward combines answer accuracy and budget efficiency, with adaptive weighting to emphasize efficiency for high‑accuracy queries and reduce it for low‑accuracy ones. Experiments on seven QA benchmarks demonstrate that AnySearch outperforms baselines across all budget scales, generalizes to unseen constraints, and improves tool productivity without excessive token overhead.

By Xiaowei Sun, Jin Li, Yili Hong, Yikun Fu, Yanghua Xiao