FLOC 2018: FEDERATED LOGIC CONFERENCE 2018
Adaptive Neighborhood Resizing for Stochastic Reachability in Multi-Agent Systems

Authors: Anna Lukina, Ashish Tiwari, Scott Smolka and Radu Grosu

Paper Information

Title:Adaptive Neighborhood Resizing for Stochastic Reachability in Multi-Agent Systems
Authors:Anna Lukina, Ashish Tiwari, Scott Smolka and Radu Grosu
Proceedings:VaVAS Proceedings
Editors: Clare Dixon, Brian Logan and Alessio Lomuscio
Keywords:flocking, stochastic reachability, adaptive, control
Abstract:

ABSTRACT. We present DAMPC, a distributed, adaptive-horizon and adaptive-neighborhood algorithm for solving the stochastic reachability problem in a distributed-flocking modeled as a Markov decision process. At each time step, DAMPC takes the following actions: First, every agent calls a centralized, adaptive-horizon model-predictive control AMPC algorithm to obtain an optimal solution for its local neighborhood. Second, the agents derive the flock-wide optimal solution through a sequence of consensus rounds. Third, the neighborhood is adaptively resized using a flock-wide, cost-based Lyapunov function V. This improves efficiency without compromising convergence. The proof of statistical global convergence is non-trivial and involves showing that V follows a monotonically decreasing trajectory despite potential fluctuations in cost and neighborhood size. We evaluate DAMPC's performance using statistical model checking. Our results demonstrate that, compared to AMPC, DAMPC achieves considerable speed-up (7.5 in some cases) with only a slightly lower rate of convergence. The smaller average neighborhood size and lookahead horizon demonstrate the benefits of the DAMPC approach for stochastic reachability problems involving any distributed controllable system that possesses a cost function.

Pages:3
Talk:Jul 18 11:00 (Session 126P: Distributed Systems II)
Paper: