{"title":"A Quality Diversity Approach to Automatically Generate Multi-Agent Path Finding Benchmark Maps (Extended Abstract)","authors":"Cheng Qian, Yulun Zhang, Jiaoyang Li","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31580","url":null,"abstract":"Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) is a complex problem aiming at searching for paths where teams of agents navigate to their goal locations without collisions. Recent advancements in MAPF have highlighted the necessity for robust benchmarks to evaluate their performance. Previously, the benchmarks used to evaluate MAPF algorithms are predominantly fixed, human-designed maps, which cannot evaluate the behavior of the algorithms comprehensively, leading to potential failures in diverse map scenarios. Meanwhile, quality diversity (QD) algorithm is used to generate maps of high solution quality for MAPF. We employ this technique to automatically generate diverse benchmark maps and explore the detailed behavior of MAPF algorithms in the generated maps. As a preliminary result, we concentrate on EECBS, a popular sub-optimal MAPF algorithm, and observe several findings regarding the runtime and solution quality of EECBS, and difficulty of the generated maps.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"24 6","pages":"279-280"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141280321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Takehide Soh, Tomoya Tanjo, Yoshio Okamoto, Takehiro Ito
{"title":"CoRe Challenge 2022/2023: Empirical Evaluations for Independent Set Reconfiguration Problems (Extended Abstract)","authors":"Takehide Soh, Tomoya Tanjo, Yoshio Okamoto, Takehiro Ito","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31583","url":null,"abstract":"In this extended abstract, we describe CoRe Challenge 2022/2023, an international competition series aiming to construct the technical foundation of practical research for Combinatorial Reconfiguration. This competition series targets one of the most well-studied reconfiguration problems, called the independent set reconfiguration problem under the token jumping model, which asks a step-by-step transformation between two given independent sets in a graph. Theoretically, the problem is PSPACE-complete, which implies that there exist instances such that even a shortest transformation requires super-polynomial steps with respect to the input size under the assumption of $NP neq PSPACE$. The competition series consists of four tracks: three tracks take two independent sets of a graph as input, and ask the existence of a transformation, a shortest transformation, a longest transformation between them; and the last track takes only a number of vertices as input, and asks for an instance of the specified number of vertices that needs a longer shortest transformation steps. We describe the background of the competition series and highlight the results of the solver and graph tracks.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"61 16","pages":"285-286"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141277040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multi-Agent Path Execution with Uncertainty","authors":"Yihao Liu, Xueyan Tang, Wentong Cai, Jingning Li","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31543","url":null,"abstract":"In real-world multi-agent applications, unexpected conditions can break the assumptions made in path planning and degrade the effectiveness of path execution. This paper studies robust and effective execution of multi-agent path plans under uncertainty. To guarantee conflict-freeness and deadlock-freeness, we define a feasibility problem to check whether the remaining portion of a path plan can be successfully executed. We prove that the problem is NP-complete and propose a feasibility test algorithm. We further develop algorithms to coordinate the agents online and have as many of them as possible moving concurrently to maximize the effectiveness of execution. We experimentally demonstrate the path execution effectiveness and computational efficiency of our algorithms.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"60 8","pages":"64-72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141274644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anas El Kouaiti, Francesco Percassi, A. Saetti, T. McCluskey, M. Vallati
{"title":"Deployable Yet Effective Traffic Signal Optimisation via Automated Planning (Extended Abstract)","authors":"Anas El Kouaiti, Francesco Percassi, A. Saetti, T. McCluskey, M. Vallati","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31575","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31575","url":null,"abstract":"The use of planning techniques in traffic signal optimisation has proven effective in managing unexpected traffic conditions as well as typical traffic patterns. However, significant challenges concerning the deployability of generated signal plans remain, as planning systems need to consider constraints and features of the actual real-world infrastructure on which they will be implemented. \u0000\u0000To address this challenge, we introduce a range of PDDL+ models embodying technological requirements as well as insights from domain experts. The proposed models have been extensively tested on historical data using a range of well-known search strategies and heuristics, as well as alternative encodings. Results demonstrate their competitiveness with the state of the art.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"16 8","pages":"269-270"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141279622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spectral Clustering in Rule-based Algorithms for Multi-agent Path Finding (Extended Abstract)","authors":"Irene Saccani, Kristýna Janovská, Pavel Surynek","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31581","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31581","url":null,"abstract":"We address rule-based algorithms for multi-agent path finding (MAPF). MAPF is a task of finding non-conflicting paths connecting agents' initial and goal positions in a shared environment specified via an undirected graph. Rule-based algorithms use a fixed set of predefined primitive operations to move agents to their goal positions in a complete manner. We propose to apply spectral clustering on the underlying graph to decompose the graph into highly connected components and move agents to their goal cluster first before the rule-based algorithm is applied. The benefit of this approach is twofold: (1) the rule-based algorithms are often more efficient on highly connected clusters and (2) we can potentially run the algorithms in parallel on individual clusters.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"14 8","pages":"281-282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141280847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Conflict Generating Decisions: Initial Results (Extended Abstract)","authors":"M. S. Chowdhury, Martin Müller, Jia-Huai You","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31574","url":null,"abstract":"Boolean Satisfiability (SAT) is an NP-complete problem, indicating its inherent computational hardness. However, Conflict Driven Clause Learning (CDCL) SAT solvers efficiently tackle large instances in diverse domains. Swift conflict identification is crucial for effective problem-solving, as conflicts lead to the learning of search space pruning clauses, pinpointing the root causes of conflicts and preventing their recurrence. CDCL decision heuristics prioritize variables that participated in recent conflicts, anticipating rapid conflict generation and expediting additional clause learning. In practice, only a fraction of decisions lead to conflicts, yet some decisions may yield multiple conflicts.\u0000\u0000In this paper, we delve into a detailed study of conflict generating decisions in CDCL, distinguishing between single conflict (sc) decisions, generating only one conflict, and multi-conflict (mc) decisions, producing two or more conflicts. Our empirical analysis characterizes each decision type based on the quality of the learned clauses they produce. Furthermore, our theoretical analysis reveals a crucial distinction: consecutive clauses learned within the same mc decision form a chain of clauses, absent in learned clauses from sc decisions. This leads to the hypothesis that the reasons for conflicts in mc decisions are more closely related than the reasons for conflicts in sc decisions, empirically confirmed with our introduced notion of reason proximity. Finally, we propose score reduction (sr) as a novel decision strategy, reducing the selection priority of certain variables from learned clauses in mc decisions. With four sets of benchmarks, culminating in over 1200 benchmarks, empirical evaluation of sr implemented on top of the SAT competition 2023 winner solver reveals the merit of this new strategy.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"135 34","pages":"267-268"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141281659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Extreme Value Monte Carlo Tree Search (Extended Abstract)","authors":"Masataro Asai, Stephen Wissow","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31569","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31569","url":null,"abstract":"Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) combined with Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) has had limited success in domain-independent classical planning until recently. Previous work (Wissow and Asai 2023) showed that UCB1, designed for bounded rewards, does not perform well when applied to the cost-to-go estimates of classical planning, which are unbounded in R, then improved the performance by using a Gaussian reward MAB instead. We further sharpen our understanding of ideal bandits for planning tasks by resolving three issues: First, Gaussian MABs under-specify the support of cost-to-go estimates as [−∞, ∞]. Second, Full-Bellman backup that backpropagates max/min of samples lacks theoretical justifications. Third, removing dead-ends lacks justifications in Monte-Carlo backup. We use Extreme Value Theory Type 2 to resolve them at once, propose two bandits (UCB1-Uniform/Power), and apply them to MCTS for classical planning. We formally prove their regret bounds and empirically demonstrate their performance in classical planning.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"56 7","pages":"257-258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141276987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Short Summary of Multi-Agent Combinatorial Path Finding with Heterogeneous Task Duration (Extended Abstract)","authors":"Yuanhang Zhang, Hesheng Wang, Zhongqiang Ren","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31591","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31591","url":null,"abstract":"Multi-Agent Combinatorial Path Finding (MCPF) seeks collision-free paths for multiple agents from their initial locations to destinations, visiting a set of intermediate target locations in the middle of the paths, while minimizing the sum of arrival times. While a few approaches have been developed to handle MCPF, most of them simply direct the agent to visit the targets without considering the task duration, i.e., the amount of time needed for an agent to execute the task (such as picking an item) at a target location. MCPF is NP-hard to solve to optimality, and the inclusion of task duration further complicates the problem. To handle task duration, we develop two methods, where the first method post-processes the paths planned by any MCPF planner to include the task duration and has no solution optimality guarantee; and the second method considers task duration during planning and is able to ensure solution optimality. The numerical and simulation results show that our methods can handle up to 20 agents and 50 targets in the presence of task duration, and can execute the paths subject to robot motion disturbance.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"45 3","pages":"301-302"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141277858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abdallah Abu-Aisha, Mark Wallace, Daniel Harabor, Bojie Shen
{"title":"Efficient and Exact Public Transport Routing via a Transfer Connection Database","authors":"Abdallah Abu-Aisha, Mark Wallace, Daniel Harabor, Bojie Shen","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31536","url":null,"abstract":"We explore the earliest arrival time problem in public transport journey planning. A journey typically consists of multiple scheduled public transport legs. The actual time required to transfer between these legs can substantially influence route planning. Therefore, we properly model transfers by incorporating their exact costs. We then introduce a novel oracle-based routing algorithm that constructs an efficient transfer database, considering the proposed transfer model. The database is leveraged online to quickly reconstruct the optimal journey in response to an earliest arrival time query. Our experimental results show that neglecting exact transfer costs often lead to either infeasible or suboptimal route plans. Furthermore, the findings highlight the efficiency of our algorithm in handling queries, demonstrated by response times within mere microseconds.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"24 6","pages":"2-10"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141278837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tunable Suboptimal Heuristic Search","authors":"Stephen Wissow, Fanhao Yu, Wheeler Ruml","doi":"10.1609/socs.v17i1.31555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1609/socs.v17i1.31555","url":null,"abstract":"Finding optimal solutions to state-space search problems often takes too long, even when using A* with a heuristic function. Instead, practitioners often use a tunable approach, such as weighted A*, that allows them to adjust a trade-off between search time and solution cost until the search is sufficiently fast for the intended application. In this paper, we study algorithms for this problem setting, which we call `tunable suboptimal search'. We introduce a simple baseline, called Speed*, that uses distance-to-go information to speed up search. Experimental results on standard search benchmarks suggest that 1) bounded-suboptimal searches suffer overhead due to enforcing a suboptimality bound, 2) beam searches can perform well, but fare poorly in domains with dead-ends, and 3) Speed* provides robust overall performance.","PeriodicalId":425645,"journal":{"name":"Symposium on Combinatorial Search","volume":"36 24","pages":"170-178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141274143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}