Skip to main content

Decentralized Markov Decision Processes for Handling Temporal and Resource constraints in a Multiple Robot System

  • Conference paper
Book cover Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems 6

Abstract

We consider in this paper a multi-robot planning system where robots realize a common mission with the following characteristics: the mission is an acyclic graph of tasks with dependencies and temporal window validity. Tasks are distributed among robots which have uncertain durations and resource consumptions to achieve tasks. This class of problems can be solved by using decision-theoretic planning techniques that are able to handle local temporal constraints and dependencies between robots allowing them to synchronize their processing. A specific decision model and a value function allow robots to coordinate their actions at runtime to maximize the overall value of the mission realization. For that, we design in this paper a cooperative multi-robot planning system using distributed Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) without communicating. Robots take uncertainty on temporal intervals and dependencies into consideration and use a distributed value function to coordinate the actions of robots.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. J. Bresina, R. Dearden, N. Meuleau, S. Ramakrishnan, D. Smith, and R. Washington. Planning under continuous time and resource uncertainty: A challenge for ai. In UAI, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  2. C. Bererton, G. Gordon, and S. Thrun. Auction mechanism design for multi-robot coordination. In S. Thrun, L. Saul, and B. Schölkopf, editors, Proceedings of Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS). MIT Press, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Graig Boutilier. Sequential optimality and coordination in multiagents systems. In IJCAI, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  4. D. Bernstein, S. Zilberstein, and N. Immerman. The complexity of decentralized control of mdps. In UAI, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. Becker, S. Zilberstein, V. Lesser, and C. Goldman. Transitionindependent decentralized markov decision processes. In AAMAS, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  6. S. Cardon, AI. Mouaddib, S. Zilberstein, and R. Washington. Adaptive control of acyclic progressive processing task structures. In IJCAI, pages 701–706, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  7. C. Guestrin, D. Koller, and R. Parr. Multiagent planning with factored mdps. In NIPS, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  8. C. Goldman and S. Zilberstein. Optimizing information exchange in cooperative multiagent systems. In AAMAS, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  9. H. Hanna and AI Mouaddib. Task selection as decision making in multiagent system. In AAMAS, pages 616–623, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  10. R. Nair, D. Pynadath, M. Yokoo, M. Tambe, and S. Marsella. Taming decentralized pomdps: Towards efficient policy computation for multiagent settings. In Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  11. L. Peshkin, K.E. Kim, N. Meuleu, and L.P. Kaelbling. Learning to cooperate via policy search. In UAI, pages 489–496, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  12. R.S. Sutton and A.G. Barto. Reinforcement learning: An introduction. MIT press, Cambrige, MA, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  13. P. Xuan, V. Lesser, and S. Zilberstein. Communication decisions in multiagent cooperation. In Autonomous Agents, pages 616–623, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2007 Springer

About this paper

Cite this paper

Beynier, A., Mouaddib, AI. (2007). Decentralized Markov Decision Processes for Handling Temporal and Resource constraints in a Multiple Robot System. In: Alami, R., Chatila, R., Asama, H. (eds) Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems 6. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-35873-2_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-35873-2_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo

  • Print ISBN: 978-4-431-35869-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-4-431-35873-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics