arXiv:2511.16916cs.AI2025-11

提出混合奖励机制,解决协同驾驶中奖励信号衰减问题。

Hybrid Differential Reward: Combining Temporal Difference and Action Gradients for Efficient Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in Cooperative Driving

  • 结合时序差分与动作梯度,构建双路奖励信号。
  • 实验显示收敛速度提升30%以上,策略更稳定。
  • 适合高频率连续控制的多车协同场景研究者。

在涉及高频连续控制的多车协同驾驶任务中,传统基于状态的奖励函数面临奖励差异消失的问题,导致策略梯度信噪比低,严重阻碍算法收敛与性能提升。本文提出一种新型混合差分奖励(HDR)机制。首先理论分析了交通状态的时序准稳态及动作物理邻近性导致传统奖励失效的原因。在此基础上,HDR框架创新性地融合两个互补组件:(1) 基于全局势能函数的时序差分奖励(TRD),利用势能演化趋势保证最优策略不变性并契合长期目标;(2) 动作梯度奖励(ARG),直接衡量动作的边际效用,提供高信噪比的局部引导信号。此外,将协同驾驶问题建模为带时变智能体集的多智能体部分可观马尔可夫博弈(POMDPG),并完整给出HDR在该框架下的实例化方案。基于在线规划(MCTS)及多智能体强化学习(QMIX、MAPPO、MADDPG)的大量实验表明,HDR显著提升收敛速度与策略稳定性,验证其能引导智能体学习出兼顾交通效率与安全的高质量协作策略。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

In multi-vehicle cooperative driving tasks involving high-frequency continuous control, traditional state-based reward functions suffer from the issue of vanishing reward differences. This phenomenon results in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for policy gradients, significantly hindering algorithm convergence and performance improvement. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel Hybrid Differential Reward (HDR) mechanism. We first theoretically elucidate how the temporal quasi-steady nature of traffic states and the physical proximity of actions lead to the failure of traditional reward signals. Building on this analysis, the HDR framework innovatively integrates two complementary components: (1) a Temporal Difference Reward (TRD) based on a global potential function, which utilizes the evolutionary trend of potential energy to ensure optimal policy invariance and consistency with long-term objectives; and (2) an Action Gradient Reward (ARG), which directly measures the marginal utility of actions to provide a local guidance signal with a high SNR. Furthermore, we formulate the cooperative driving problem as a Multi-Agent Partially Observable Markov Game (POMDPG) with a time-varying agent set and provide a complete instantiation scheme for HDR within this framework. Extensive experiments conducted using both online planning (MCTS) and Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (QMIX, MAPPO, MADDPG) algorithms demonstrate that the HDR mechanism significantly improves convergence speed and policy stability. The results confirm that HDR guides agents to learn high-quality cooperative policies that effectively balance traffic efficiency and safety.

强化学习协同驾驶多智能体奖励设计

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