DR. WELL: Dynamic Reasoning and Learning with Symbolic World Model for Embodied LLM-Based Multi-Agent Collaboration

Narjes Nourzad, Hanqing Yang, Shiyu Chen, Carlee Joe-Wong

Keywords: Multi-agent systems, Large Language Model agents, Embodied multi-agent environment, World model, Symbolic planning, Decentralized planning, Cooperative intelligence, Neurosymbolic

TL;DR: DR.WELL is a decentralized neurosymbolic framework that enables embodied agents to cooperate under partial observability and limited communication through symbolic plans mediated by a shared world model.

Abstract:

Cooperative multi-agent planning requires agents to make joint decisions with partial information and limited communication. Coordination at the trajectory level often fails, as small deviations in timing or movement cascade into conflicts. Symbolic planning mitigates this by raising the level of abstraction and providing a minimal vocabulary of actions that enable synchronization and collective progress.
We present DR. WELL, a decentralized neurosymbolic framework for cooperative multi-agent planning. Cooperation unfolds through a two-phase negotiation protocol: agents first propose candidate roles with reasoning and then commit to a joint allocation under consensus and environment constraints. After commitment, each agent independently generates and executes a symbolic plan for its role without revealing detailed trajectories. Plans are grounded in perception via a shared world model that encodes the current state and is updated as agents act.
By reasoning over symbolic plans rather than raw trajectories, DR. WELL avoids brittle step-level alignment and enables higher-level operations that are reusable, synchronizable, and interpretable. Experiments on cooperative block-push tasks show that agents adapt across episodes, with the dynamic world model capturing reusable patterns and improving task completion rates and efficiency. Experiments on cooperative block-push tasks show that our dynamic world model improves task completion and efficiency through negotiation and self-refinement, trading a time overhead for evolving, more efficient collaboration strategies. We will release our code upon acceptance.

Submission Type: Research Paper (4-9 Pages)

Submission Number: 128