MARS-RA: Rank Aggregation for Credit Assignment via Multimodal Comparisons in Embodied Multi-Agent Cooperation

Dawei Wang, Di Zhao, XINYUAN LIU, Marci Chi Ma, Xiaoyang Liu, CHENGMING ZHOU, Gary Ushaw, Richard Davison

Abstract: Credit assignment is a fundamental challenge in cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning, particularly in embodied AI settings characterized by limited and delayed feedback as well as dynamically changing numbers of active agents. We propose MARS-RA, a framework that reformulates credit assignment as a rank aggregation problem using contribution-based pairwise comparisons among agents generated by large multimodal models. This shift from absolute to relative estimation ensures robustness against noise and dynamic agent participation, converting comparison results into contribution scores for potential-based reward shaping. We provide theoretical justification for the convergence and robustness of the proposed framework, and show that Shapley values can be used as an interpretive reference. Experimental results on challenging tasks of different types indicate that MARS-RA can guide agents toward effective cooperation.