Mean field games (MFGs) tractably model behavior in large agent populations. The literature on learning MFG equilibria typically focuses on finding Nash equilibria (NE), which assume perfectly rational agents and are hence implausible in many realistic situations. To overcome these limitations, we incorporate bounded rationality into MFGs by leveraging the well-known concept of quantal response equilibria (QRE). Two novel types of MFG QRE enable the modeling of large agent populations where individuals only noisily estimate the true objective. We also introduce a second source of bounded rationality to MFGs by restricting agents' planning horizon. The resulting novel receding horizon (RH) MFGs are combined with QRE and existing approaches to model different aspects of bounded rationality in MFGs. We formally define MFG QRE and RH MFGs and compare them to existing equilibrium concepts such as entropy-regularized NE. Subsequently, we design generalized fixed point iteration and fictitious play algorithms to learn QRE and RH equilibria. After a theoretical analysis, we give different examples to evaluate the capabilities of our learning algorithms and outline practical differences between the equilibrium concepts.

This study investigates the use of generative AI and multi-agent systems to provide automatic feedback in educational contexts, particularly for student constructed responses in science assessments. The research addresses a key gap in the field by exploring how multi-agent systems, called AutoFeedback, can improve the quality of GenAI-generated feedback, overcoming known issues such as over-praise and over-inference that are common in single-agent large language models (LLMs). The study developed a multi-agent system consisting of two AI agents: one for generating feedback and another for validating and refining it. The system was tested on a dataset of 240 student responses, and its performance was compared to that of a single-agent LLM. Results showed that AutoFeedback significantly reduced the occurrence of over-praise and over-inference errors, providing more accurate and pedagogically sound feedback. The findings suggest that multi-agent systems can offer a more reliable solution for generating automated feedback in educational settings, highlighting their potential for scalable and personalized learning support. These results have important implications for educators and researchers seeking to leverage AI in formative assessments, offering a pathway to more effective feedback mechanisms that enhance student learning outcomes.

In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping countless fields, the research community of social sciences needs to adapt to the changes posed by these technologies [1, 2]. In particular, data quality and authenticity play a significant role in social sciences [3], where the conclusions drawn rely heavily on data collected, for instance, from surveys. There are many traditional ways of gathering data, such as public datasets or private surveys, but AI has led to innovative approaches, like using agent-based models (ABMs). In recent years, the use of this paradigm has gained significant attention across a variety of fields, from economics and social sciences to artificial intelligence and computational biology [4, 5, 6]. ABMs allow researchers to simulate complex situations by modeling the behaviors and interactions of individual agents within a given environment [7]. These models provide a powerful way to understand emergent phenomena--such as market dynamics, social behaviors, or ecological systems--that arise from the independent actions and interactions of individual agents, each following its own set of rules. In spite of their flexibility, these models face some limitations, particularly when dealing with complex environments. One of the main challenges is that the agents' behaviors are programmed by the modeler based on assumptions or simplified rules. This rigid structure limits the ability to account for the full range of possible interactions that can emerge in real-world scenarios.

The systems of large number (>10) of agents, hereafter referred to as a multi-agent system, are crucial in a wide range of autonomy applications, including swarm robotics [1] and fleets of autonomous vehicles [2]. Inspired by collective behaviors observed in nature such as fish schools and bird flocks, these systems aim to achieve collective goals through the interaction among individual agents using a set of decentralized rules. Analytical flocking models such as Reynolds model [3] or Vicsek model [4] replicate collective behaviors observed in nature, but these models require precise localization which is rarely possible in the real-world applications. Therefore, real-time prediction of collective behavior, like how and when agents will achieve a collective goal, is essential for adapting the local rules and controlling multi-agent systems in a real-world environment [5, 6] as illustrated in Figure 1. This prediction is valuable in competitive settings like swarm herding [7], where understanding the system dynamics of adversarial agents can enhance strategic control.

Understanding how individual agents make strategic decisions within collectives is important for advancing fields as diverse as economics, neuroscience, and multi-agent systems. Two complementary approaches can be integrated to this end. The Active Inference framework (AIF) describes how agents employ a generative model to adapt their beliefs about and behaviour within their environment. Game theory formalises strategic interactions between agents with potentially competing objectives. To bridge the gap between the two, we propose a factorisation of the generative model whereby each agent maintains explicit, individual-level beliefs about the internal states of other agents, and uses them for strategic planning in a joint context. We apply our model to iterated general-sum games with 2 and 3 players, and study the ensemble effects of game transitions, where the agents' preferences (game payoffs) change over time. This non-stationarity, beyond that caused by reciprocal adaptation, reflects a more naturalistic environment in which agents need to adapt to changing social contexts. Finally, we present a dynamical analysis of key AIF quantities: the variational free energy (VFE) and the expected free energy (EFE) from numerical simulation data. The ensemble-level EFE allows us to characterise the basins of attraction of games with multiple Nash Equilibria under different conditions, and we find that it is not necessarily minimised at the aggregate level. By integrating AIF and game theory, we can gain deeper insights into how intelligent collectives emerge, learn, and optimise their actions in dynamic environments, both cooperative and non-cooperative.

This study investigates the efficacy of Multi-Agent Systems in eliciting cross-agent communication and enhancing collective intelligence through group decision-making in a decentralized setting. Unlike centralized mechanisms, where a fixed hierarchy governs social choice, decentralized group decision-making allows agents to engage in joint deliberation. Our research focuses on the dynamics of communication and decision-making within various social choice methods. By applying different voting rules in various environments, we find that moderate decision flexibility yields better outcomes. Additionally, exploring the linguistic features of agent-to-agent conversations reveals indicators of effective collaboration, offering insights into communication patterns that facilitate or hinder collaboration. Finally, we propose various methods for determining the optimal stopping point in multi-agent collaborations based on linguistic cues. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how decentralized decision-making and group conversation shape multi-agent collaboration, with implications for the design of more effective MAS environments.

Building a distributed spatial awareness within a swarm of locally sensing and communicating robots enables new swarm algorithms. We use local observations by robots of each other and Gaussian Belief Propagation message passing combined with continuous swarm movement to build a global and distributed swarm-centric frame of reference. With low bandwidth and computation requirements, this shared reference frame allows new swarm algorithms. We characterise the system in simulation and demonstrate two example algorithms.

As modern web services increasingly rely on REST APIs, their thorough testing has become crucial. Furthermore, the advent of REST API specifications such as the OpenAPI Specification has led to the emergence of many black-box REST API testing tools. However, these tools often focus on individual test elements in isolation (e.g., APIs, parameters, values), resulting in lower coverage and less effectiveness in detecting faults (i.e., 500 response codes). To address these limitations, we present AutoRestTest, the first black-box framework to adopt a dependency-embedded multi-agent approach for REST API testing, integrating Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) with a Semantic Property Dependency Graph (SPDG) and Large Language Models (LLMs). Our approach treats REST API testing as a separable problem, where four agents -- API, dependency, parameter, and value -- collaborate to optimize API exploration. LLMs handle domain-specific value restrictions, the SPDG model simplifies the search space for dependencies using a similarity score between API operations, and MARL dynamically optimizes the agents' behavior. Evaluated on 12 real-world REST services, AutoRestTest outperforms the four leading black-box REST API testing tools, including those assisted by RESTGPT (which augments realistic test inputs using LLMs), in terms of code coverage, operation coverage, and fault detection. Notably, AutoRestTest is the only tool able to identify an internal server error in Spotify. Our ablation study underscores the significant contributions of the agent learning, SPDG, and LLM components.

Robotic simulators provide cost-effective and risk-free virtual environments for studying robotic designs, control algorithms, and sensor integrations. They typically host extensive libraries of sensors and actuators that facilitate rapid prototyping and design evaluations in simulation. The use of the most prominent existing robotic simulators is however limited to simulation of rigid-link robots. On the other hand, there exist dedicated specialized environments for simulating soft robots. This separation limits the study of soft robotic systems, particularly in hybrid scenarios where soft and rigid sub-systems co-exist. In this work, we develop a lightweight open-source digital twin of a commercially available soft gripper, directly integrated within the robotic simulator Webots. We use a Rigid-Link-Discretization (RLD) model to simulate the soft gripper. Using a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) approach, we identify the parameters of the RLD model based on the kinematics and dynamics of the physical system and show the efficacy of our modeling approach in validation experiments. All software and experimental details are available on github: https://github.com/anonymousgituser1/Robosoft2025

With the increasing focus on flexible automation, which emphasizes systems capable of adapting to varied tasks and conditions, exploring future deployments of cloud and edge-based network infrastructures in robotic systems becomes crucial. This work, examines how wireless solutions could support the shift from rigid, wired setups toward more adaptive, flexible automation in industrial environments. We provide a quality of control (QoC) based abstraction for robotic workloads, parameterized on loop latency and reliability, and jointly optimize system performance. The setup involves collaborative robots working on distributed tasks, underscoring how wireless communication can enable more dynamic coordination in flexible automation systems. We use our abstraction to optimally maximize the QoC ensuring efficient operation even under varying network conditions. Additionally, our solution allocates the communication resources in time slots, optimizing the balance between communication and control costs. Our simulation results highlight that minimizing the delay in the system may not always ensure the best QoC but can lead to substantial gains in QoC if delays are sometimes relaxed, allowing more packets to be delivered reliably.