ARES: Adaptive receding-horizon synthesis of optimal plans

Anna Lukina*, Lukas Esterle, Christian Hirsch, Ezio Bartocci, Junxing Yang, Ashish Tiwari, Scott A. Smolka, Radu Grosu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Published conference outputConference publication

Abstract

We introduce ARES, an efficient approximation algorithm for generating optimal plans (action sequences) that take an initial state of a Markov Decision Process (MDP) to a state whose cost is below a specified (convergence) threshold. ARES uses Particle Swarm Optimization, with adaptive sizing for both the receding horizon and the particle swarm. Inspired by Importance Splitting, the length of the horizon and the number of particles are chosen such that at least one particle reaches a next-level state, that is, a state where the cost decreases by a required delta from the previous-level state. The level relation on states and the plans constructed by ARES implicitly define a Lyapunov function and an optimal policy, respectively, both of which could be explicitly generated by applying ARES to all states of the MDP, up to some topological equivalence relation. We also assess the effectiveness of ARES by statistically evaluating its rate of success in generating optimal plans. The ARES algorithm resulted from our desire to clarify if flying in V-formation is a flocking policy that optimizes energy conservation, clear view, and velocity alignment. That is, we were interested to see if one could find optimal plans that bring a flock from an arbitrary initial state to a state exhibiting a single connected V-formation. For flocks with 7 birds, ARES is able to generate a plan that leads to a V-formation in 95% of the 8,000 random initial configurations within 63 s, on average. ARES can also be easily customized into a model-predictive controller (MPC) with an adaptive receding horizon and statistical guarantees of convergence. To the best of our knowledge, our adaptive-sizing approach is the first to provide convergence guarantees in receding-horizon techniques.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems - 23rd International Conference, TACAS 2017 held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2017, Proceedings
PublisherSpringer
Pages286-302
Number of pages17
Volume10206
ISBN (Print)9783662545799
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 31 Mar 2017
Event23rd International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2017 held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2017 - Uppsala, Sweden
Duration: 22 Apr 201729 Apr 2017

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume10206 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference23rd International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2017 held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2017
Country/TerritorySweden
City Uppsala
Period22/04/1729/04/17

Bibliographical note

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-54580-5_17

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