A Semi-Decentralized Approach to Multiagent Control

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11802v1
• Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2026 11:05:20 GMT
• Title: A Semi-Decentralized Approach to Multiagent Control
• Abstract summary: We introduce an expressive framework and algorithms for the semi-decentralized control of cooperative agents in environments with communication uncertainty.<n>We extend semi-decentralization to the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP)<n>The resulting SDec-POMDP unifies decentralized and multiagent POMDPs and several existing explicit communication mechanisms.
• Score: 24.816348898055523
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: We introduce an expressive framework and algorithms for the semi-decentralized control of cooperative agents in environments with communication uncertainty. Whereas semi-Markov control admits a distribution over time for agent actions, semi-Markov communication, or what we refer to as semi-decentralization, gives a distribution over time for what actions and observations agents can store in their histories. We extend semi-decentralization to the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). The resulting SDec-POMDP unifies decentralized and multiagent POMDPs and several existing explicit communication mechanisms. We present recursive small-step semi-decentralized A* (RS-SDA*), an exact algorithm for generating optimal SDec-POMDP policies. RS-SDA* is evaluated on semi-decentralized versions of several standard benchmarks and a maritime medical evacuation scenario. This paper provides a well-defined theoretical foundation for exploring many classes of multiagent communication problems through the lens of semi-decentralization.

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