Diversifying behaviors for learning in asymmetric multiagent systems

Gaurav Dixit, Everardo Gonzalez, Kagan Tumer

Abstract: To achieve coordination in multiagent systems such as air traffic control or search and rescue, agents must not only evolve their policies, but also adapt to the behaviors of other agents. However, extending coevolutionary algorithms to complex domains is difficult because agents evolve in the dynamic environment created by the changing policies of other agents. This problem is exacerbated when the teams consist of diverse asymmetric agents (agents with different capabilities and objectives), making it difficult for agents to evolve complementary policies. Quality-Diversity methods solve part of the problem by allowing agents to discover not just optimal, but diverse behaviors, but are computationally intractable in multiagent settings. This paper introduces a multiagent learning framework to allow asymmetric agents to specialize and explore diverse behaviors needed for coordination in a shared environment. The key insight of this work is that a hierarchical decomposition of diversity search, fitness optimization, and team composition modeling allows the fitness on the team-wide objective to direct the diversity search in a dynamic environment. Experimental results in multiagent environments with temporal and spatial coupling requirements demonstrate the diversity of acquired agent synergies in response to a changing environment and team compositions.