Point-based bounded policy iteration for decentralized POMDPs

Abstract

We present a memory-bounded approximate algorithm for solving infinite-horizon decentralized partially observable Markov decision processes (DEC-POMDPs). In particular, we improve upon the bounded policy iteration (BPI) approach, which searches for a locally optimal stochastic finite state controller, by accompanying reachability analysis on controller nodes. As a result, the algorithm has different optimization criteria for the reachable and the unreachable nodes, and it is more effective in the search for an optimal policy. Through experiments on benchmark problems, we show that our algorithm is competitive to the recent nonlinear optimization approach, both in the solution time and the policy quality.