A Two-stage Reinforcement Learning-based Approach for Multi-entity Task Allocation

TL;DR

This paper presents a two-stage reinforcement learning approach for dynamic multi-entity task allocation, effectively handling changing task attributes and generalizing to new tasks in various environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel two-stage RL-based algorithm with an attention mechanism and hyperparameter network for dynamic, generalizable task allocation.

Findings

Outperforms heuristic algorithms like genetic algorithms in dynamic environments

Achieves zero-shot generalization to new tasks

Effectively handles changing task and entity attributes

Abstract

Task allocation is a key combinatorial optimization problem, crucial for modern applications such as multi-robot cooperation and resource scheduling. Decision makers must allocate entities to tasks reasonably across different scenarios. However, traditional methods assume static attributes and numbers of tasks and entities, often relying on dynamic programming and heuristic algorithms for solutions. In reality, task allocation resembles Markov decision processes, with dynamically changing task and entity attributes. Thus, algorithms must dynamically allocate tasks based on their states. To address this issue, we propose a two-stage task allocation algorithm based on similarity, utilizing reinforcement learning to learn allocation strategies. The proposed pre-assign strategy allows entities to preselect appropriate tasks, effectively avoiding local optima and thereby better finding the optimal allocation. We also introduce an attention mechanism and a hyperparameter network structure to adapt to the changing number and attributes of entities and tasks, enabling our network structure to generalize to new tasks. Experimental results across multiple environments demonstrate that our algorithm effectively addresses the challenges of dynamic task allocation in practical applications. Compared to heuristic algorithms like genetic algorithms, our reinforcement learning approach better solves dynamic allocation problems and achieves zero-shot generalization to new tasks with good performance. The code is available at https://github.com/yk7333/TaskAllocation.