Game-theoretic learning algorithm for a spatial coverage problem

In this paper we consider a class of dynamic vehicle routing problems, in which a number of mobile agents in the plane must visit target points generated over time by a stochastic process. It is desired to design motion coordination strategies in order to minimize the expected time between the appea...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Savla, Ketan, Frazzoli, Emilio
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2010
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60305
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0505-1400
Description
Summary:In this paper we consider a class of dynamic vehicle routing problems, in which a number of mobile agents in the plane must visit target points generated over time by a stochastic process. It is desired to design motion coordination strategies in order to minimize the expected time between the appearance of a target point and the time it is visited by one of the agents. We cast the problem as a spatial game in which each agent's objective is to maximize the expected value of the à ¿time spent aloneà ¿ at the next target location and show that the Nash equilibria of the game correspond to the desired agent configurations. We propose learning-based control strategies that, while making minimal or no assumptions on communications between agents as well as the underlying distribution, provide the same level of steady-state performance achieved by the best known decentralized strategies.