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Generative encoding for multiagent learning

Published: 12 July 2008 Publication History

Abstract

This paper argues that multiagent learning is a potential "killer application" for generative and developmental systems (GDS) because key challenges in learning to coordinate a team of agents are naturally addressed through indirect encodings and information reuse. For example, a significant problem for multiagent learning is that policies learned separately for different agent roles may nevertheless need to share a basic skill set, forcing the learning algorithm to reinvent the wheel for each agent. GDS is a good match for this kind of problem because it specializes in ways to encode patterns of related yet varying motifs. In this paper, to establish the promise of this capability, the Hypercube-based NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (HyperNEAT) generative approach to evolving neurocontrollers learns a set of coordinated policies encoded by a single genome representing a team of predator agents that work together to capture prey. Experimental results show that it is not only possible, but beneficial to encode a heterogeneous team of agents with an indirect encoding. The main contribution is thus to open up a significant new application domain for GDS.

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cover image ACM Conferences
GECCO '08: Proceedings of the 10th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation
July 2008
1814 pages
ISBN:9781605581309
DOI:10.1145/1389095
  • Conference Chair:
  • Conor Ryan,
  • Editor:
  • Maarten Keijzer
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 12 July 2008

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Author Tags

  1. CPPNs
  2. HyperNEAT
  3. NEAT
  4. multiagent systems
  5. neural networks

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  • (2024)Using neuroevolution for designing soft medical devicesBiomimetic Intelligence and Robotics10.1016/j.birob.2024.100205(100205)Online publication date: Dec-2024
  • (2023)Evolution of Neural NetworksProceedings of the Companion Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation10.1145/3583133.3595036(1008-1025)Online publication date: 15-Jul-2023
  • (2023)Evolutionary Machine Learning in RoboticsHandbook of Evolutionary Machine Learning10.1007/978-981-99-3814-8_23(657-694)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2023
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  • (2021)A Systematic Literature Review of the Successors of “NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies”Evolutionary Computation10.1162/evco_a_0028229:1(1-73)Online publication date: Mar-2021
  • (2021)Evolution of neural networksProceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion10.1145/3449726.3461432(426-442)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2021
  • (2021)A geometric encoding for neural network evolutionProceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference10.1145/3449639.3459361(919-927)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2021
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