多智能体在稀疏奖励下探索环境,发现学习周期数与智能体数量的临界关系。
The Horizon Threshold in Cooperative Multi-Agent Reward-Free Exploration
- 设计分阶段算法,让多个智能体独立执行策略并收集轨迹。
- 当学习阶段数等于时域长度H时,仅需约$\tilde{O}(S^6 H^6 A / ε^2)$个智能体即可逼近动态模型。
- 揭示了学习阶段数少于H时,所需智能体数量呈指数增长,适用于资源受限场景研究。
我们研究合作式多智能体强化学习中的奖励自由探索问题,即多个智能体协同探索未知的马尔可夫决策过程(MDP),以学习其动态特性(不观察奖励信号)。考虑一个表格型有限时域MDP,并采用分阶段学习框架。每个学习阶段中,多个智能体各自独立与环境交互:每个智能体被分配一个策略,执行后观测生成的轨迹。核心目标是刻画学习阶段数与智能体数量之间的权衡,尤其是在学习阶段数较少的情况下。我们的结果显示,存在由时域长度$H$决定的相变现象:当学习阶段数恰好为$H$时,提出一种计算高效的算法,仅需$\tilde{O}(S^6 H^6 A / ε^2)$个智能体,即可获得对动态的$ε$-近似(即对任意奖励函数均能导出$ε$-最优策略)。同时,我们给出了下界证明:任何限制在$ρ < H$个阶段内的算法,至少需要$A^{H/ρ}$个智能体才能达到常数精度。因此,当限制智能体数量为多项式规模时,$Θ(H)$个学习阶段既是必要也是充分条件。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We study cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning in the setting of reward-free exploration, where multiple agents jointly explore an unknown MDP in order to learn its dynamics (without observing rewards). We focus on a tabular finite-horizon MDP and adopt a phased learning framework. In each learning phase, multiple agents independently interact with the environment. More specifically, in each learning phase, each agent is assigned a policy, executes it, and observes the resulting trajectory. Our primary goal is to characterize the tradeoff between the number of learning phases and the number of agents, especially when the number of learning phases is small. Our results identify a regime change governed by the horizon $H$. When the number of learning phases equals $H$, we present a computationally efficient algorithm that uses only $\tilde{O}(S^6 H^6 A / ε^2)$ agents to obtain an $ε$ approximation of the dynamics (i.e., yields an $ε$-optimal policy for any reward function). We complement our algorithm with a lower bound showing that any algorithm restricted to $ρ< H$ phases requires at least $A^{H/ρ}$ agents to achieve constant accuracy. Thus, we show that having $Θ(H)$ learning phases is both necessary and sufficient when restricting the number of agents to be polynomial.
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