The Emergence of Complex Bodyguard Behavior Through Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

In this paper we are considering a scenario where a team of robot bodyguards are providing physical protection to a VIP in a crowded public space. We show that the problem involves a complex mesh of interactions between the VIP and the robots, between the robots themselves and the robots and the bystanders respectively. We show how recently proposed multi-agent policy gradient reinforcement learning algorithms such as MADDPG can be successfully adapted to learn collaborative robot behaviors that provide protection to the VIP.

Accepted at Autonomy in Teams Workshop at ICML 2018