Agents
Joint Interaction and Trajectory Prediction for Autonomous Driving using Graph Neural Networks
Lee, Donsuk, Gu, Yiming, Hoang, Jerrick, Marchetti-Bowick, Micol
In this work, we aim to predict the future motion of vehicles in a traffic scene by explicitly modeling their pairwise interactions. Specifically, we propose a graph neural network that jointly predicts the discrete interaction modes and 5-second future trajectories for all agents in the scene. Our model infers an interaction graph whose nodes are agents and whose edges capture the long-term interaction intents among the agents. In order to train the model to recognize known modes of interaction, we introduce an auto-labeling function to generate ground truth interaction labels. Using a large-scale real-world driving dataset, we demonstrate that jointly predicting the trajectories along with the explicit interaction types leads to significantly lower trajectory error than baseline methods. Finally, we show through simulation studies that the learned interaction modes are semantically meaningful.
Putting Ridesharing to the Test: Efficient and Scalable Solutions and the Power of Dynamic Vehicle Relocation
Danassis, Panayiotis, Sakota, Marija, Filos-Ratsikas, Aris, Faltings, Boi
Ridesharing is a coordination problem in its core. Traditionally it has been solved in a centralized manner by ridesharing platforms. Yet, to truly allow for scalable solutions, we needs to shift from traditional approaches, to multi-agent systems, ideally run on-device. In this paper, we show that a recently proposed heuristic (ALMA), which exhibits such properties, offers an efficient, end-to-end solution for the ridesharing problem. Moreover, by utilizing simple relocation schemes we significantly improve QoS metrics, by up to 50%. To demonstrate the latter, we perform a systematic evaluation of a diverse set of algorithms for the ridesharing problem, which is, to the best of our knowledge, one of the largest and most comprehensive to date. Our evaluation setting is specifically designed to resemble reality as closely as possible. In particular, we evaluate 12 different algorithms over 12 metrics related to global efficiency, complexity, passenger, driver, and platform incentives.
Classifying Inconsistency Measures Using Graphs
De Bona, Glauber, Grant, John, Hunter, Anthony, Konieczny, Sebastien
The aim of measuring inconsistency is to obtain an evaluation of the imperfections in a set of formulas, and this evaluation may then be used to help decide on some course of action (such as rejecting some of the formulas, resolving the inconsistency, seeking better sources of information, etc). A number of proposals have been made to define measures of inconsistency. Each has its rationale. But to date, it is not clear how to delineate the space of options for measures, nor is it clear how we can classify measures systematically. To address these problems, we introduce a general framework for comparing syntactic measures of inconsistency. It is based on the notion of an inconsistency graph for each knowledgebase (a bipartite graph with a set of vertices representing formulas in the knowledgebase, a set of vertices representing minimal inconsistent subsets of the knowledgebase, and edges representing that a formula belongs to a minimal inconsistent subset). We then show that various measures can be computed using the inconsistency graph. Then we introduce abstractions of the inconsistency graph and use them to construct a hierarchy of syntactic inconsistency measures. Furthermore, we extend the inconsistency graph concept with a labeling that extends the hierarchy to include some other types of inconsistency measures.
LTLf Synthesis with Fairness and Stability Assumptions
Zhu, Shufang, De Giacomo, Giuseppe, Pu, Geguang, Vardi, Moshe
In synthesis, assumptions are constraints on the environment that rule out certain environment behaviors. A key observation here is that even if we consider systems with LTL f goals on finite traces, environment assumptions need to be expressed over infinite traces, since accomplishing the agent goals may require an unbounded number of environment action. To solve synthesis with respect to finite-trace LTL f goals under infinite-trace assumptions, we could reduce the problem to LTL synthesis. Unfortunately, while synthesis in LTL f and in LTLhave the same worst-case complexity (both 2EXPTIME-complete), the algorithms available for LTLsyn-thesis are much more difficult in practice than those for LTL f synthesis. In this work we show that in interesting cases we can avoid such a detour to LTLsynthesis and keep the simplicity of LTL f synthesis. Specifically, we develop a BDD-based fixpoint-based technique for handling basic forms of fairness and of stability assumptions. We show, empirically, that this technique performs much better than standard LTLsynthesis. Introduction In many situations we are interested in expressing properties over an unbounded but finite sequence of successive states. Linear-time Temporal Logic over finite traces ( LTL f) and its variants have been thoroughly investigated for doing so. There has been broad research for logical reasoning (De Gi-acomo and V ardi 2013; Li et al. 2019), synthesis (De Gi-acomo and V ardi 2015; Camacho et al. 2018), and planning (Camacho et al. 2017; De Giacomo and Rubin 2018). Recently synthesis under assumptions in LTL f has attracted specific interest (De Giacomo and Rubin 2018; Camacho, Bienvenu, and McIlraith 2018). First, planning for LTL f goals can be considered as a form of LTL f synthesis under assumptions, where the assumptions are the dynamics of the environment encoded in the planning domain (Green 1969; Camacho, Bienvenu, and McIlraith 2018; Aminof et al. 2018; Aminof et al. 2019). Synthesis under assumptions has been extensively studied in LTL, where environment assumptions are expressed as LTL formulas (Chatterjee and Henzinger 2007; Chatter-jee, Henzinger, and Jobstmann 2008; D'Ippolito et al. 2013; Bloem, Ehlers, and K onighofer 2015; Brenguier, Raskin, and Sankur 2017). In fact, LTL formulas can be used as assumptions as long as it is guaranteed that the environment is able to behave so as to keep the assumptions true, i.e., assumptions are environment realizable. Under these circumstances, it is possible to reduce synthesis for LTL goal ψ G under assumptions ψ A to standard synthesis for ψ A ψ G. Note that because of the guarantee of ψ A being environment realizable, no agent strategy can win ψ A ψ G by falsifying ψ A. See (Aminof et al. 2019) for a discussion.
Coordination in Adversarial Sequential Team Games via Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning
Celli, Andrea, Ciccone, Marco, Bongo, Raffaele, Gatti, Nicola
Many real-world applications involve teams of agents that have to coordinate their actions to reach a common goal against potential adversaries. This paper focuses on zero-sum games where a team of players faces an opponent, as is the case, for example, in Bridge, collusion in poker, and collusion in bidding. The possibility for the team members to communicate before gameplay---that is, coordinate their strategies ex ante---makes the use of behavioral strategies unsatisfactory. We introduce Soft Team Actor-Critic (STAC) as a solution to the team's coordination problem that does not require any prior domain knowledge. STAC allows team members to effectively exploit ex ante communication via exogenous signals that are shared among the team. STAC reaches near-optimal coordinated strategies both in perfectly observable and partially observable games, where previous deep RL algorithms fail to reach optimal coordinated behaviors.
Natural Actor-Critic Converges Globally for Hierarchical Linear Quadratic Regulator
Luo, Yuwei, Yang, Zhuoran, Wang, Zhaoran, Kolar, Mladen
Multi-agent reinforcement learning has been successfully applied to a number of challenging problems. Despite these empirical successes, theoretical understanding of different algorithms is lacking, primarily due to the curse of dimensionality caused by the exponential growth of the state-action space with the number of agents. We study a fundamental problem of multi-agent linear quadratic regulator in a setting where the agents are partially exchangeable. In this setting, we develop a hierarchical actor-critic algorithm, whose computational complexity is independent of the total number of agents, and prove its global linear convergence to the optimal policy. As linear quadratic regulators are often used to approximate general dynamic systems, this paper provided an important step towards better understanding of general hierarchical mean-field multi-agent reinforcement learning.
Spatial Influence-aware Reinforcement Learning for Intelligent Transportation System
Intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) are envisioned to be crucial for smart cities, which aims at improving traffic flow to improve the life quality of urban residents and reducing congestion to improve the efficiency of commuting. However, several challenges need to be resolved before such systems can be deployed, for example, conventional solutions for Markov decision process (MDP) and single-agent Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms suffer from poor scalability, and multi-agent systems suffer from poor communication and coordination. In this paper, we explore the potential of mutual information sharing, or in other words, spatial influence based communication, to optimize traffic light control policy. First, we mathematically analyze the transportation system. We conclude that the transportation system does not have stationary Nash Equilibrium, thereby reinforcement learning algorithms offer suitable solutions. Secondly, we describe how to build a multi-agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) system with spatial influence and social group utility incorporated. Then we utilize the grid topology road network to empirically demonstrate the scalability of the new system. We demonstrate three types of directed communications to show the effect of directions of social influence on the entire network utility and individual utility. Lastly, we define "selfish index" and analyze the effect of it on total group utility.
Resolving Congestions in the Air Traffic Management Domain via Multiagent Reinforcement Learning Methods
Kravaris, Theocharis, Spatharis, Christos, Bastas, Alevizos, Vouros, George A., Blekas, Konstantinos, Andrienko, Gennady, Andrienko, Natalia, Garcia, Jose Manuel Cordero
In this article, we report on the efficiency and effectiveness of multiagent reinforcement learning methods (MARL) for the computation of flight delays to resolve congestion problems in the Air Traffic Management (ATM) domain. Specifically, we aim to resolve cases where demand of airspace use exceeds capacity (demand-capacity problems), via imposing ground delays to flights at the pre-tactical stage of operations (i.e. few days to few hours before operation). Casting this into the multiagent domain, agents, representing flights, need to decide on own delays w.r.t. own preferences, having no information about others' payoffs, preferences and constraints, while they plan to execute their trajectories jointly with others, adhering to operational constraints. Specifically, we formalize the problem as a multiagent Markov Decision Process (MA-MDP) and we show that it can be considered as a Markov game in which interacting agents need to reach an equilibrium: What makes the problem more interesting is the dynamic setting in which agents operate, which is also due to the unforeseen, emergent effects of their decisions in the whole system. We propose collaborative multiagent reinforcement learning methods to resolve demand-capacity imbalances: Extensive experimental study on real-world cases, shows the potential of the proposed approaches in resolving problems, while advanced visualizations provide detailed views towards understanding the quality of solutions provided.
A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence
Horowitz, Michael C., Scharre, Paul, Velez-Green, Alexander
The potential for advances in information-age technologies to undermine nuclear deterrence and influence the potential for nuclear escalation represents a critical question for international politics. One challenge is that uncertainty about the trajectory of technologies such as autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI) makes assessments difficult. This paper evaluates the relative impact of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence in three areas: nuclear command and control, nuclear delivery platforms and vehicles, and conventional applications of autonomous systems with consequences for nuclear stability. We argue that countries may be more likely to use risky forms of autonomy when they fear that their second-strike capabilities will be undermined. Additionally, the potential deployment of uninhabited, autonomous nuclear delivery platforms and vehicles could raise the prospect for accidents and miscalculation. Conventional military applications of autonomous systems could simultaneously influence nuclear force postures and first-strike stability in previously unanticipated ways. In particular, the need to fight at machine speed and the cognitive risk introduced by automation bias could increase the risk of unintended escalation. Finally, used properly, there should be many applications of more autonomous systems in nuclear operations that can increase reliability, reduce the risk of accidents, and buy more time for decision-makers in a crisis.