Multi-Agent Path Execution with Uncertainty

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.