Collaborative Altruistic Safety in Coupled Multi-Agent Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a collaborative safety framework for multi-agent systems using control barrier functions inspired by altruism, enabling agents to cooperatively maintain safety under coupling dynamics.

Contribution

It develops altruistic safety conditions based on Hamilton's rule and integrates them into a distributed optimization framework for improved safety in multi-agent systems.

Findings

Enhanced safety feasibility demonstrated in simulations

Agents can trade safety for neighbors' support effectively

Framework increases robustness of safety enforcement

Abstract

This paper presents a novel framework for ensuring safety in dynamically coupled multi-agent systems through collaborative control. Drawing inspiration from ecological models of altruism, we develop collaborative control barrier functions that allow agents to cooperatively enforce individual safety constraints under coupling dynamics. We introduce an altruistic safety condition based on the so-called Hamilton's rule, enabling agents to trade off their own safety to support higher-priority neighbors. By incorporating these conditions into a distributed optimization framework, we demonstrate increased feasibility and robustness in maintaining system-wide safety. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated through simulation in a simplified formation control scenario.