Optimizing Information Exchange in Cooperative Multi-agent Systems
Claudia V. Goldman
Shlomo Zilberstein
Abstract
Decentralized control of a cooperative multi-agent system is the
problem faced by multiple decision-makers that share a common set of
objectives. The decision-makers may be robots placed at separate
geographical locations or computational processes distributed in an
information space. It may be impossible or undesirable for these
decision-makers to share all their knowledge all the time.
Furthermore, exchanging information may incur a cost associated with
the required bandwidth or with the risk of revealing it to competing
agents. Assuming that communication may not be
reliable adds another dimension of complexity to the problem.
This paper develops a decision-theoretic solution to this problem,
treating both standard actions and communication as explicit choices
that the decision maker must consider. The goal is to derive both
action policies and communication policies that together optimize a
global value function. We present an analytical model to evaluate the
trade-off between the cost of communication and the value of the
information received. Finally, to address the complexity of this hard
optimization problem, we develop a practical approximation technique
based on myopic meta-level control of communication.
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