Trajectory prediction is crucial for autonomous driving as it aims to forecast the future movements of traffic participants. Traditional methods usually perform holistic inference on the trajectories of agents, neglecting the differences in prediction difficulty among agents. This paper proposes a novel Difficulty-Guided Feature Enhancement Network (DGFNet), which leverages the prediction difficulty differences among agents for multi-agent trajectory prediction. Firstly, we employ spatio-temporal feature encoding and interaction to capture rich spatio-temporal features. Secondly, a difficulty-guided decoder is used to control the flow of future trajectories into subsequent modules, obtaining reliable future trajectories. Then, feature interaction and fusion are performed through the future feature interaction module. Finally, the fused agent features are fed into the final predictor to generate the predicted trajectory distributions for multiple participants. Experimental results demonstrate that our DGFNet achieves state-of-the-art performance on the Argoverse 1\&2 motion forecasting benchmarks. Ablation studies further validate the effectiveness of each module. Moreover, compared with SOTA methods, our method balances trajectory prediction accuracy and real-time inference speed.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) significantly influences many fields, largely thanks to the vast amounts of high-quality data for machine learning models. The emphasis is now on a data-centric AI strategy, prioritizing data development over model design progress. Automating this process is crucial. In this paper, we serve as the first work to introduce the automatic data-centric development (AD^2) task and outline its core challenges, which require domain-experts-like task scheduling and implementation capability, largely unexplored by previous work. By leveraging the strong complex problem-solving capabilities of large language models (LLMs), we propose an LLM-based autonomous agent, equipped with a strategy named Collaborative Knowledge-STudying-Enhanced Evolution by Retrieval (Co-STEER), to simultaneously address all the challenges. Specifically, our proposed Co-STEER agent enriches its domain knowledge through our proposed evolving strategy and develops both its scheduling and implementation skills by accumulating and retrieving domain-specific practical experience. With an improved schedule, the capability for implementation accelerates. Simultaneously, as implementation feedback becomes more thorough, the scheduling accuracy increases. These two capabilities evolve together through practical feedback, enabling a collaborative evolution process. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our Co-STEER agent breaks new ground in AD^2 research, possesses strong evolvable schedule and implementation ability, and demonstrates the significant effectiveness of its components. Our Co-STEER paves the way for AD^2 advancements.

This paper explores the Mechanism Design aspects of the $m$-Capacitated Facility Location Problem where the total facility capacity is less than the number of agents. Following the framework outlined by Aziz et al., the Social Welfare of the facility location is determined through a First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) game, in which agents compete once the facility positions are established. When the number of facilities is $m > 1$, the Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the FCFS game is not unique, making the utility of the agents and the concept of truthfulness unclear. To tackle these issues, we consider absolutely truthful mechanisms, i.e. mechanisms that prevent agents from misreporting regardless of the strategies used during the FCFS game. We combine this stricter truthfulness requirement with the notion of Equilibrium Stable (ES) mechanisms, which are mechanisms whose Social Welfare does not depend on the NE of the FCFS game. We demonstrate that the class of percentile mechanisms is absolutely truthful and identify the conditions under which they are ES. We also show that the approximation ratio of each ES percentile mechanism is bounded and determine its value. Notably, when all the facilities have the same capacity and the number of agents is sufficiently large, it is possible to achieve an approximation ratio smaller than $1+\frac{1}{2m-1}$. Finally, we extend our study to encompass higher-dimensional problems. Within this framework, we demonstrate that the class of ES percentile mechanisms is even more restricted and characterize the mechanisms that are both ES and absolutely truthful. We further support our findings by empirically evaluating the performance of the mechanisms when the agents are the samples of a distribution.

Cooperative multi-agent learning methods are essential in developing effective cooperation strategies in multi-agent domains. In robotics, these methods extend beyond multi-robot scenarios to single-robot systems, where they enable coordination among different robot modules (e.g., robot legs or joints). However, current methods often struggle to quickly adapt to unforeseen failures, such as a malfunctioning robot leg, especially after the algorithm has converged to a strategy. To overcome this, we introduce the Relational Q-Functionals (RQF) framework. RQF leverages a relational network, representing agents' relationships, to enhance adaptability, providing resilience against malfunction(s). Our algorithm also efficiently handles continuous state-action domains, making it adept for robotic learning tasks. Our empirical results show that RQF enables agents to use these relationships effectively to facilitate cooperation and recover from an unexpected malfunction in single-robot systems with multiple interacting modules. Thus, our approach offers promising applications in multi-agent systems, particularly in scenarios with unforeseen malfunctions.

Multi-Robot System (MRS) is a complex system that contains many different software and hardware components. This main problem addressed in this article is the MRS design complexity. The proposed solution provides a modular modeling and simulation technique that is based on formal system engineering method, therefore the MRS design complexity is decomposed and reduced. Modeling the MRS has been achieved via two formal Architecture Description Languages (ADLs), which are Systems Modeling Language (SysML) and Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), to design the system blueprints. By using those abstract design ADLs, the implementation of the project becomes technology agnostic. This allows to transfer the design concept from on programming language to another. During the simulation phase, a multi-agent environment is used to simulate the MRS blueprints. The simulation has been implemented in Java Agent Development (JADE) middleware. Therefore, its results can be used to analysis and verify the proposed MRS model in form of performance evaluation matrix.

Cooperative multi-agent learning plays a crucial role for developing effective strategies to achieve individual or shared objectives in multi-agent teams. In real-world settings, agents may face unexpected failures, such as a robot's leg malfunctioning or a teammate's battery running out. These malfunctions decrease the team's ability to accomplish assigned task(s), especially if they occur after the learning algorithms have already converged onto a collaborative strategy. Current leading approaches in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) often recover slowly -- if at all -- from such malfunctions. To overcome this limitation, we present the Collaborative Adaptation (CA) framework, highlighting its unique capability to operate in both continuous and discrete domains. Our framework enhances the adaptability of agents to unexpected failures by integrating inter-agent relationships into their learning processes, thereby accelerating the recovery from malfunctions. We evaluated our framework's performance through experiments in both discrete and continuous environments. Empirical results reveal that in scenarios involving unforeseen malfunction, although state-of-the-art algorithms often converge on sub-optimal solutions, the proposed CA framework mitigates and recovers more effectively.

Simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) provides a promising way to expand coverage in wireless communications. However, limitation of single STAR-RIS inspire us to integrate the concept of multi-hop transmissions, as focused on RIS in existing research. Therefore, we propose the novel architecture of multi-hop STAR-RISs to achieve a wider range of full-plane service coverage. In this paper, we intend to solve active beamforming of the base station and passive beamforming of STAR-RISs, aiming for maximizing the energy efficiency constrained by hardware limitation of STAR-RISs. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of the on-off state of STAR-RIS elements on energy efficiency. To tackle the complex problem, a Multi-Agent Global and locAl deep Reinforcement learning (MAGAR) algorithm is designed. The global agent elevates the collaboration among local agents, which focus on individual learning. In numerical results, we observe the significant improvement of MAGAR compared to the other benchmarks, including Q-learning, multi-agent deep Q network (DQN) with golbal reward, and multi-agent DQN with local rewards. Moreover, the proposed architecture of multi-hop STAR-RISs achieves the highest energy efficiency compared to mode switching based STAR-RISs, conventional RISs and deployment without RISs or STAR-RISs.

In social decision-making among strategic agents, a universal focus lies on the balance between social and individual interests. Socially efficient mechanisms are thus desirably designed to not only maximize the social welfare but also incentivize the agents for their own profit. Under a generalized model that includes applications such as double auctions and trading networks, this study establishes a socially efficient (SE), dominant-strategy incentive compatible (DSIC), and individually rational (IR) mechanism with the minimum total budget expensed to the agents. The present method exploits discrete and known type domains to reduce a set of constraints into the shortest path problem in a weighted graph. In addition to theoretical derivation, we substantiate the optimality of the proposed mechanism through numerical experiments, where it certifies strictly lower budget than Vickery-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanisms for a wide class of instances.

Decision Transformer (DT), as one of the representative Reinforcement Learning via Supervised Learning (RvS) methods, has achieved strong performance in offline learning tasks by leveraging the powerful Transformer architecture for sequential decision-making. However, in adversarial environments, these methods can be non-robust, since the return is dependent on the strategies of both the decision-maker and adversary. Training a probabilistic model conditioned on observed return to predict action can fail to generalize, as the trajectories that achieve a return in the dataset might have done so due to a weak and suboptimal behavior adversary. To address this, we propose a worst-case-aware RvS algorithm, the Adversarial Robust Decision Transformer (ARDT), which learns and conditions the policy on in-sample minimax returns-to-go. ARDT aligns the target return with the worst-case return learned through minimax expectile regression, thereby enhancing robustness against powerful test-time adversaries. In experiments conducted on sequential games with full data coverage, ARDT can generate a maximin (Nash Equilibrium) strategy, the solution with the largest adversarial robustness. In large-scale sequential games and continuous adversarial RL environments with partial data coverage, ARDT demonstrates significantly superior robustness to powerful test-time adversaries and attains higher worst-case returns compared to contemporary DT methods.

Modeling Socioeconomic Systems: ABMs Socioeconomic systems exhibit intricate patterns of interaction and adaptation, e.g., between social groups and to changing environmental and economic conditions, reflecting a degree of complexity that challenges current methods for analysis and prediction of these systems [1, 2]. Modeling the complexity of these systems often requires detailed knowledge of the interacting components, their associated scales, and sufficient resolution of these details such that bottom-up emergent properties can be observed. Agent-based models (ABMs) are a computational modeling tool to resolve these facets of complex social science problems. ABMs simulate a large number of agents in a shared environment: through agent-to-agent and agent-environment interactions, ABMs relate system-wide emergent properties to individual behaviors [3]. This work was supported by the Multisector Dynamics program area of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research as part of the multi-program, collaborative Integrated Coastal Modeling (ICoM) project at PNNL, a multi-program national laboratory operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.