Agents
Multi Agent Framework for Collective Intelligence Research
This paper presents a scalable decentralized multi agent framework that facilitates the exchange of information between computing units through computer networks. The architectural boundaries imposed by the tool make it suitable for collective intelligence research experiments ranging from agents that exchange hello world messages to virtual drone agents exchanging positions and eventually agents exchanging information via radio with real Crazyflie drones in VU Amsterdam laboratory. The field modulation theory is implemented to construct synthetic local perception maps for agents, which are constructed based on neighbouring agents positions and neighbouring points of interest dictated by the environment. By constraining the experimental setup to a 2D environment with discrete actions, constant velocity and parameters tailored to VU Amsterdam laboratory, UAV Crazyflie drones running hill climbing controller followed collision-free trajectories and bridged sim-to-real gap.
DBHP: Trajectory Imputation in Multi-Agent Sports Using Derivative-Based Hybrid Prediction
Choi, Hanjun, Kim, Hyunsung, Lee, Minho, Kim, Chang-Jo, Yoon, Jinsung, Ko, Sang-Ki
Many spatiotemporal domains handle multi-agent trajectory data, but in real-world scenarios, collected trajectory data are often partially missing due to various reasons. While existing approaches demonstrate good performance in trajectory imputation, they face challenges in capturing the complex dynamics and interactions between agents due to a lack of physical constraints that govern realistic trajectories, leading to suboptimal results. To address this issue, the paper proposes a Derivative-Based Hybrid Prediction (DBHP) framework that can effectively impute multiple agents' missing trajectories. First, a neural network equipped with Set Transformers produces a naive prediction of missing trajectories while satisfying the permutation-equivariance in terms of the order of input agents. Then, the framework makes alternative predictions leveraging velocity and acceleration information and combines all the predictions with properly determined weights to provide final imputed trajectories. In this way, our proposed framework not only accurately predicts position, velocity, and acceleration values but also enforces the physical relationship between them, eventually improving both the accuracy and naturalness of the predicted trajectories. Accordingly, the experiment results about imputing player trajectories in team sports show that our framework significantly outperforms existing imputation baselines.
From Mobilisation to Radicalisation: Probing the Persistence and Radicalisation of Social Movements Using an Agent-Based Model
Thomas, Emma F., Ye, Mengbin, Angus, Simon D., Mathew, Tony J., Louis, Winnifred, Walsh, Liam, Ellery, Silas, Lizzio-Wilson, Morgana, McGarty, Craig
We are living in an age of protest. Although we have an excellent understanding of the factors that predict participation in protest, we understand little about the conditions that foster a sustained (versus transient) movement. How do interactions between supporters and authorities combine to influence whether and how people engage (i.e., using conventional or radical tactics)? This paper introduces a novel, theoretically-founded and empirically-informed agent-based model (DIMESim) to address these questions. We model the complex interactions between the psychological attributes of the protester (agents), the authority to whom the protests are targeted, and the environment that allows protesters to coordinate with each other -- over time, and at a population scale. Where an authority is responsive and failure is contested, a modest sized conventional movement endured. Where authorities repeatedly and incontrovertibly fail the movement, the population disengaged from action but evidenced an ongoing commitment to radicalism (latent radicalism).
Operational Safety in Human-in-the-loop Human-in-the-plant Autonomous Systems
Banerjee, Ayan, Maity, Aranyak, Lamrani, Imane, Gupta, Sandeep K. S.
Control affine assumptions, human inputs are external disturbances, in certified safe controller synthesis approaches are frequently violated in operational deployment under causal human actions. This paper takes a human-in-the-loop human-in-the-plant (HIL-HIP) approach towards ensuring operational safety of safety critical autonomous systems: human and real world controller (RWC) are modeled as a unified system. A three-way interaction is considered: a) through personalized inputs and biological feedback processes between HIP and HIL, b) through sensors and actuators between RWC and HIP, and c) through personalized configuration changes and data feedback between HIL and RWC. We extend control Lyapunov theory by generating barrier function (CLBF) under human action plans, model the HIL as a combination of Markov Chain for spontaneous events and Fuzzy inference system for event responses, the RWC as a black box, and integrate the HIL-HIP model with neural architectures that can learn CLBF certificates. We show that synthesized HIL-HIP controller for automated insulin delivery in Type 1 Diabetes is the only controller to meet safety requirements for human action inputs.
Leveraging Chemistry Foundation Models to Facilitate Structure Focused Retrieval Augmented Generation in Multi-Agent Workflows for Catalyst and Materials Design
Park, Nathaniel H., Callahan, Tiffany J., Hedrick, James L., Erdmann, Tim, Capponi, Sara
Molecular property prediction and generative design via deep learning models has been the subject of intense research given its potential to accelerate development of new, high-performance materials. More recently, these workflows have been significantly augmented with the advent of large language models (LLMs) and systems of LLM-driven agents capable of utilizing pre-trained models to make predictions in the context of more complex research tasks. While effective, there is still room for substantial improvement within the agentic systems on the retrieval of salient information for material design tasks. Moreover, alternative uses of predictive deep learning models, such as leveraging their latent representations to facilitate cross-modal retrieval augmented generation within agentic systems to enable task-specific materials design, has remained unexplored. Herein, we demonstrate that large, pre-trained chemistry foundation models can serve as a basis for enabling semantic chemistry information retrieval for both small-molecules, complex polymeric materials, and reactions. Additionally, we show the use of chemistry foundation models in conjunction with image models such as OpenCLIP facilitate unprecedented queries and information retrieval across multiple characterization data domains. Finally, we demonstrate the integration of these systems within multi-agent systems to facilitate structure and topological-based natural language queries and information retrieval for complex research tasks.
DreamFactory: Pioneering Multi-Scene Long Video Generation with a Multi-Agent Framework
Xie, Zhifei, Tang, Daniel, Tan, Dingwei, Klein, Jacques, Bissyand, Tegawend F., Ezzini, Saad
Current video generation models excel at creating short, realistic clips, but struggle with longer, multi-scene videos. We introduce \texttt{DreamFactory}, an LLM-based framework that tackles this challenge. \texttt{DreamFactory} leverages multi-agent collaboration principles and a Key Frames Iteration Design Method to ensure consistency and style across long videos. It utilizes Chain of Thought (COT) to address uncertainties inherent in large language models. \texttt{DreamFactory} generates long, stylistically coherent, and complex videos. Evaluating these long-form videos presents a challenge. We propose novel metrics such as Cross-Scene Face Distance Score and Cross-Scene Style Consistency Score. To further research in this area, we contribute the Multi-Scene Videos Dataset containing over 150 human-rated videos.
Subgoal-based Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Agent Collaboration
Xu, Cheng, Zhang, Changtian, Shi, Yuchen, Wang, Ran, Duan, Shihong, Wan, Yadong, Zhang, Xiaotong
Recent advancements in reinforcement learning have made significant impacts across various domains, yet they often struggle in complex multi-agent environments due to issues like algorithm instability, low sampling efficiency, and the challenges of exploration and dimensionality explosion. Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) offers a structured approach to decompose complex tasks into simpler sub-tasks, which is promising for multi-agent settings. This paper advances the field by introducing a hierarchical architecture that autonomously generates effective subgoals without explicit constraints, enhancing both flexibility and stability in training. We propose a dynamic goal generation strategy that adapts based on environmental changes. This method significantly improves the adaptability and sample efficiency of the learning process. Furthermore, we address the critical issue of credit assignment in multi-agent systems by synergizing our hierarchical architecture with a modified QMIX network, thus improving overall strategy coordination and efficiency. Comparative experiments with mainstream reinforcement learning algorithms demonstrate the superior convergence speed and performance of our approach in both single-agent and multi-agent environments, confirming its effectiveness and flexibility in complex scenarios. Our code is open-sourced at: \url{https://github.com/SICC-Group/GMAH}.
Drama Engine: A Framework for Narrative Agents
Pichlmair, Martin, Raj, Riddhi, Putney, Charlene
This technical report presents the Drama Engine, a novel framework for agentic interaction with large language models designed for narrative purposes. The framework adapts multi-agent system principles to create dynamic, context-aware companions that can develop over time and interact with users and each other. Key features include multi-agent workflows with delegation, dynamic prompt assembly, and model-agnostic design. The Drama Engine introduces unique elements such as companion development, mood systems, and automatic context summarising. It is implemented in TypeScript. The framework's applications include multi-agent chats and virtual co-workers for creative writing. The paper discusses the system's architecture, prompt assembly process, delegation mechanisms, and moderation techniques, as well as potential ethical considerations and future extensions.
Bayesian Optimization Framework for Efficient Fleet Design in Autonomous Multi-Robot Exploration
Concha, David Molina, Li, Jiping, Yin, Haoran, Park, Kyeonghyeon, Lee, Hyun-Rok, Lee, Taesik, Sirohi, Dhruv, Lee, Chi-Guhn
This study addresses the challenge of fleet design optimization in the context of heterogeneous multi-robot fleets, aiming to obtain feasible designs that balance performance and costs. In the domain of autonomous multi-robot exploration, reinforcement learning agents play a central role, offering adaptability to complex terrains and facilitating collaboration among robots. However, modifying the fleet composition results in changes in the learned behavior, and training multi-robot systems using multi-agent reinforcement learning is expensive. Therefore, an exhaustive evaluation of each potential fleet design is infeasible. To tackle these hurdles, we introduce Bayesian Optimization for Fleet Design (BOFD), a framework leveraging multi-objective Bayesian Optimization to explore fleets on the Pareto front of performance and cost while accounting for uncertainty in the design space. Moreover, we establish a sub-linear bound for cumulative regret, supporting BOFD's robustness and efficacy. Extensive benchmark experiments in synthetic and simulated environments demonstrate the superiority of our framework over state-of-the-art methods, achieving efficient fleet designs with minimal fleet evaluations.
Networked Communication for Mean-Field Games with Function Approximation and Empirical Mean-Field Estimation
Benjamin, Patrick, Abate, Alessandro
Recent works have provided algorithms by which decentralised agents, which may be connected via a communication network, can learn equilibria in Mean-Field Games from a single, non-episodic run of the empirical system. However, these algorithms are given for tabular settings: this computationally limits the size of players' observation space, meaning that the algorithms are not able to handle anything but small state spaces, nor to generalise beyond policies depending on the ego player's state to so-called 'population-dependent' policies. We address this limitation by introducing function approximation to the existing setting, drawing on the Munchausen Online Mirror Descent method that has previously been employed only in finite-horizon, episodic, centralised settings. While this permits us to include the population's mean-field distribution in the observation for each player's policy, it is arguably unrealistic to assume that decentralised agents would have access to this global information: we therefore additionally provide new algorithms that allow agents to estimate the global empirical distribution based on a local neighbourhood, and to improve this estimate via communication over a given network. Our experiments showcase how the communication network allows decentralised agents to estimate the mean-field distribution for population-dependent policies, and that exchanging policy information helps networked agents to outperform both independent and even centralised agents in function-approximation settings, by an even greater margin than in tabular settings.