The increasing cost tree search for optimal multi-agent pathfinding Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • We address the problem of optimal path finding for multiple agents where agents must not collide and their total travel cost should be minimized. Previous work used traditional single-agent search variants of the A* algorithm. We present a novel formalization for this problem which includes a search tree called the increasing cost tree (ICT) and a corresponding search algorithm that finds optimal solutions. We analyze this new formalization and compare it to the previous state-of-the-art A*-based approach. Experimental results on various domains show the benefits and drawbacks of this approach. A speedup of up to 3 orders of magnitude was obtained in a number of cases.

published proceedings

  • IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence

author list (cited authors)

  • Sharon, G., Stern, R., Goldenberg, M., & Felner, A.

complete list of authors

  • Sharon, G||Stern, R||Goldenberg, M||Felner, A

publication date

  • December 2011