Multi-Agent Task Allocation with Multiple Depots Using Graph Attention Pointer Network

Abstract

The study of the multi-agent task allocation problem with multiple depots is crucial for investigating multi-agent collaboration. Although many traditional heuristic algorithms can be adopted to handle the concerned task allocation problem, they are not able to efficiently obtain optimal or suboptimal solutions. To this end, a graph attention pointer network is built in this paper to deal with the multi-agent task allocation problem. Specifically, the multi-head attention mechanism is employed for the feature extraction of nodes, and a pointer network with parallel two-way selection and parallel output is introduced to further improve the performance of multi-agent cooperation and the efficiency of task allocation. Experimental results are provided to show that the presented graph attention pointer network outperforms the traditional heuristic algorithms.