A Low-Cost Q-Learning-Based Approach to Handle Continuous Space Problems for Decentralized Multi-Agent Robot Navigation in Cluttered Environments

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Ajabshir V. B., GÜZEL M. S., BOSTANCI G. E.

IEEE ACCESS, cilt.10, ss.35287-35301, 2022 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 10
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1109/access.2022.3163393
  • Dergi Adı: IEEE ACCESS
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Compendex, INSPEC, Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.35287-35301
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Robot kinematics, Navigation, Q-learning, Robot sensing systems, Multi-agent systems, Swarm robotics, Task analysis, Adaptive algorithm, continuous space problem, multi-agent systems, Q-learning, STOCHASTIC-APPROXIMATION, REINFORCEMENT, CONVERGENCE, ALGORITHMS, SYSTEMS, SWARM
  • Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This paper addresses the problem of navigating decentralized multi-agent systems in partially cluttered environments and proposes a new machine-learning-based approach to solve it. On the basis of this approach, a new robust and flexible Q-learning-based model is proposed to handle a continuous space problem. As in reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, Q-learning does not require a model of the environment. Additionally, Q-Learning (QL) has the advantages of being fast and easy to design. However, one disadvantage of QL is that it needs a massive amount of memory, and it grows exponentially with each extra feature introduced to the state space. In this research, we introduce an agent-level decentralized collision avoidance low-cost model for solving a continuous space problem in partially cluttered environments, followed by introducing a method to merge non-overlapping QL features in order to reduce its size significantly by about 70% and make it possible to solve more complicated scenarios with the same memory size. Additionally, another method is proposed for minimizing the sensory data that is used by the controller. A combination of these methods is able to handle swarm navigation low memory cost with at least18 number of robots. These methods can also be adapted for deep q-learning architectures so as to increase their approximation performance and also decrease their learning time process. Experiments reveal that the proposed method also achieves a high degree of accuracy for multi-agent systems in complex scenarios.