Performance Models for Large Scale Multi-Agent System: A Distributed Pomdp-Based Approach

Given a large group of cooperative agents, selecting the right coordination or conflict resolution strategy can have a significant impact on their performance (e.g., speed of convergence). While performance models of such coordination or conflict resolution strategies could aid in selecting the right strategy for a given domain, such models remain largely uninvestigated in the multiagent literature. This chapter takes a step towards applying the recently emerging distributed POMDP (partially observable Markov decision process) frameworks, such as MTDP (Markov team decision process), in service of creating such performance models. A strategy is mapped onto an MTDP policy, and strategies are compared by evaluating their corresponding policies. To address issues of scale-up in applying the distributed POMDP-based models, we use small-scale models, called building blocks that represent the local interaction among a small group of agents. We discuss several ways to combine building blocks for performance prediction of a larger-scale multiagent system.