Strategic multi-task coordination over regular networks of robots with limited computation and communication capabilities

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strategic agents in multi-robot systems can coordinate over networks with limited resources, proposing equilibrium strategies and algorithms for task allocation under uncertainty.

Contribution

It introduces a Nash equilibrium framework with a simple linear structure for multi-agent task coordination under stochastic task difficulties.

Findings

Existence of a linear Nash equilibrium for diffuse priors

Best responses can be nonlinear with non-diffuse priors

An efficient algorithm for computing affine Nash equilibria

Abstract

Coordination is a desirable feature in multi-agent systems, allowing the execution of tasks that would be impossible by individual agents. We study coordination by a team of strategic agents choosing to undertake one of the multiple tasks. We adopt a stochastic framework where the agents decide between two distinct tasks whose difficulty is randomly distributed and partially observed. We show that a Nash equilibrium with a simple and intuitive linear structure exists for diffuse prior distributions on the task difficulties. Additionally, we show that the best response of any agent to an affine strategy profile can be nonlinear when the prior distribution is not diffuse. Finally, we state an algorithm that allows us to efficiently compute a data-driven Nash equilibrium within the class of affine policies.