Resolving Head-On Conflicts for Multi-Agent Path Finding with Conflict-Based Search

TL;DR

This paper introduces the head-on conflict resolution technique for Conflict-Based Search in multi-agent pathfinding, enhancing efficiency by jointly resolving predictable conflicts, and demonstrates its effectiveness on the CBSH solver.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel head-on conflict detection method that improves the efficiency of CBS-based MAPF solvers by handling predictable conflicts more effectively.

Findings

Head-on technique reduces solving time for MAPF problems.

Improves performance of CBSH solver in experiments.

Applicable to all CBS-based MAPF algorithms.

Abstract

Conflict-Based Search (CBS) is a popular framework for solving the Multi-Agent Path Finding problem. Some of the conflicts incur a foreseeable conflict in one or both of the children nodes when splitting on them. This paper introduces a new technique, namely the head-on technique that finds out such conflicts, so they can be processed more efficiently by resolving the conflict with the potential conflict all together in one split. The proposed technique applies to all CBS-based solvers. Experimental results show that the head-on technique improves the state-of-the-art MAPF solver CBSH.