Skip to main content
Log in

Multi-agent real-time pursuit

  • Published:
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we address the problem of multi-agent pursuit in dynamic and partially observable environments, modeled as grid worlds; and present an algorithm called Multi-Agent Real-Time Pursuit (MAPS) for multiple predators to capture a moving prey cooperatively. MAPS introduces two new coordination strategies namely Blocking Escape Directions and Using Alternative Proposals, which help the predators waylay the possible escape directions of the prey in coordination. We compared our coordination strategies with the uncoordinated one against a prey controlled by Prey A*, and observed an impressive reduction in the number of moves to catch the prey.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Ishida T., Korf R. (1995) Moving target search: A real-time search for changing goals. IEEE Trans Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 17(6): 97–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Undeger, C. (2007). Single and multi agent real-time path search in dynamic and partially observable environments. Ph.D. thesis in Computer Engineering Department of Middle East Technical university.

  3. Undeger C., Polat F. (2008) Real-time moving target evaluation search. IEEE Transaction on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C 39(3): 366–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Tanenbaum A. (1996) Computer networks. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  5. Russell S., Norving P. (1995) Artificial intelligence: A modern approach. Prentice Hall, New Jersey

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Gutmann, J., Fukuchi, M., & Fujita, M. (2005). Real-time path planning for humanoid robot navigation. In Internationl joint conference on artificial intelligence IJCAI-05 (pp. 1232–1237). Denver, CO: Professional Book Center.

  7. Michalewicz Z. (1986) Genetic algorithms + data structure = evolution programs. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  8. Sugihara, K., & Smith, J. (1997). Genetic algorithms for adaptive planning of path and trajectory of a mobile robot in 2d terrains. Technical Report, number ICS-TR-97-04, University of Hawaii, Department of Information and Computer Sciences.

  9. Cheng, P., & LaValle, S. M. (2002). Resolution complete rapidly-exploring random trees. In Proceedings of IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (pp. 267–272).

  10. LaValle, S., & Kuffner, J. (1999). Randomized kinodynamic planning. In Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA’99).

  11. LaValle, S. M., & Kuffner, J. J. (2001). Rapidly-exploring random trees: Progress and prospects. Algorithmic and computational robotics: New directions (pp. 293–308). Wellesley, MA: A K Peters.

  12. Kavraki, L., & Latombe, J. (1998). Probabilistic roadmaps for robot path planning, ser. In Practical motion planning in robotics: current and future directions. Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.

  13. Sanchez, G., Ramos, F., & Frausto, J. (1999). Locally-optimal path planning by using probabilistic roadmaps and simulated annealing. In Proceedings IASTED robotics and applications international conference.

  14. Koenig S., Likhachev M., Liu Y., Furcy D. (2004) Incremental heuristic search in artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence Magazine 25(2): 99–112

    Google Scholar 

  15. Stentz, A. (1994). Optimal and efficient path planning for partially-known environments. In Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation.

  16. Mudgal A., Tovey C., Greenberg S., Koenig S. (2005) Bounds on the travel cost of a mars rover prototype search heuristic. SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics 19(2): 431–447

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  17. Stentz, A. (1995). The focussed D* algorithm for real-time replanning. In Proceedings of the international joint conference on artificial intelligence.

  18. Koenig, S., & Likhachev, M. (2002a). D* lite. In Proceedings of the national conference on artificial intelligence (pp. 476–483).

  19. Koenig, S., & Likhachev, M. (2002b). Improved fast replanning for robot navigation in unknown terrain. In Proceedings of the international conference on robotics and automation.

  20. Koenig S., Likhachev M. (2005) Fast replanning for navigation in unknown terrain. Transactions on Robotics 21(3): 354–363

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Koenig, S., Likhachev, M., & Sun, X. (2007). Speeding up moving-target search*. In 6th international joint conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems.

  22. Kamon, I., Rivlin, E., & Rimon, E. (1996). A new range-sensor based globally convergent navigation algorithm for mobile robots. In Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (Vol. 1, pp. 429–435).

  23. Lumelsky V.J., Skewis T. (1987) Path-planning strategies for a point mobile automaton moving amidst unknown obstacles of arbitrary shape. Algoritmica 2: 403–430

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. Korf R. (1990) Real-time heuristic search. Artificial Intelligence 42(2–3): 189–211

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Koenig, S. (2004). A comparison of fast search methods for real-time situated agents. AAMAS 2004 (pp. 864–871).

  26. Koenig, S., & Likhachev, M. (2006). Real-time adaptive a*. In 5th international joint conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (pp. 281–288).

  27. Hernandez, C., & Meseguer, P. (2005). Lrta*(k). In International joint conference on artificial intelligence IJCAI-05 (pp. 1238–1243).

  28. Undeger, C. (2001). Real-time mission planning for virtual human agents. M.Sc. thesis in Computer Engineering Department of Middle East Technical University.

  29. Shimbo M., Ishida T. (2003) Controlling the learning process of real-time heuristic search. Artificial Intelligence 146(1): 1–41

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  30. Thorpe, P. (1994). A hybrid learning real-time search algorithm. Master’s thesis, Computer Science Department, University of California at Los Angeles.

  31. Edelkamp, S., & Eckerle, J. (1997). New strategies in real-time heuristic search. In Proceedings of the AAAI-97 workshop on on-line search (pp. 30–35).

  32. Furcy, D., & Koenig, S. (2000). Speeding up the convergence of real-time search. In Proceedings of AAAI (pp. 891–897).

  33. Furcy, D., & Koenig, S. (2001). Combining two fast-learning real-time search algorithms yields even faster learning. In Proceedings of the 6th European conference on planning.

  34. Konar A. (2000) Artificial intelligence and soft computing: Behavioral and cognitive modeling of human brain. CRC Press LLC, Florida

    Google Scholar 

  35. Bruce, J., & Veloso, M. (2002). Real-time randomized path planning for robot navigation. In Proceedings of international conference on intelligent robots and systems (pp. 2383–2388).

  36. Hsu D., Kindel R., Latombe J., Rock S. (2002) Randomized kinodynamic motion planning with moving obstacles. International Journal of Robotics Research 21(3): 233–255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Undeger, C., Polat, F., & Ipekkan, Z. (2001). Real-time edge follow: A new paradigm to real-time path search. In The Proceedings of GAME-ON 2001.

  38. Undeger C., Polat F. (2007) Real-time edge follow: A real-time path search approach. IEEE Transaction on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C 37(5): 860–872

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Undeger, C., & Polat, F. (2006). Real-time target evaluation search. In 5th Internaltional joint conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems, AAMAS-06 (pp. 332–334).

  40. Undeger C., Polat F. (2007) Rttes: Real-time search in dynamic environments. Applied Intelligence 27: 113–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Benda, M., Jagannathan, V., & Dodhiawalla, R. (1986). On optimal cooperation of knowledge sources. Technical Report No.BCS-G2010-28, Boeing Advanced Technology Center.

  42. Erus G., Polat F. (2007) A layered approach to learning coordination knowledge in multiagent environments. Applied Intelligence 27(3): 249–267

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Ishiwaka Y., Sato T., Kakazu Y. (2003) An approach to the pursuit problem on a heterogeneous multiagent system using reinforcement learning. Elsevier Journal on Robotics and Autonomous Systems 43(4): 245–256

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Xiao, D., & Tan, A. (2005). Cooperative cognitive agents and reinforcement learning in pursuit game. In Proceedings of 3rd international conference on computational intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems (CIRAS’05).

  45. Haynes T., Sen S. (1996) Evolving behavioral strategies in predators and prey. Springer Book on Adaptation and Learning in Multiagent Systems 1042: 113–126

    Google Scholar 

  46. Haynes, T., & Sen, S. (1997). The evolution of multiagent coordination strategies. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.53.4981.

  47. Korf R. (1992). A simple solution to pursuit games. In Working papers of the 11th international workshop on distributed artificial intelligence (pp. 183–194).

  48. Yong, C., & Miikkulainen, R. (2001). Cooperative coevolution of multi-agent systems. Technical report: AI01-287, University of Texas at Austin.

  49. Levy, R., & Rosenschein, J. (1992). A game theoretic approach to the pursuit problem. In 11th international workshop on distributed artificial intelligence.

  50. Kitamura, Y., Teranishi, K., & Tatsumi, S. (1996). Organizational strategies for multiagent real-time search. In Proceedings of international conference on multi-agent systems (ICMAS-96) (pp. 150–156).

  51. Knight, K. (1993). Are many reactive agents better than a few deliberative ones? In Proceedings of the 10th international joint conference on artificial intelligence (pp. 432–437).

  52. Goldenberg, M., Kovarsky, A., Wu, X., & Schaeffer J. (2003). Multiple agents moving target search. In International joint conference on artificial intelligence, IJCAI (pp. 1536–1538).

  53. Vincent, P., & Rubin, I. (2004). A framework and analysis for cooperative search using uav swarms. In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM symposium on applied computing.

  54. Altshuler Y., Yanovskya V., Wagner I.A., Bruckstein A.M. (2008) Efficient cooperative search of smart targets using uav swarms. Robotica 26: 551–557

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Kota, R., Braynov, S., & Llinas, J. (2003). Multi-agent moving target search in a hazy environment. IEEE international conference on integration of knowledge intensive multi-agent systems (pp. 275–278).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Faruk Polat.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Undeger, C., Polat, F. Multi-agent real-time pursuit. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 21, 69–107 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-009-9102-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-009-9102-0

Keywords

Navigation