RoLocMe: A Robust Multi-agent Source Localization System with Learning-based Map Estimation

RoLocMe: A Robust Multi-agent Source Localization System with Learning-based Map Estimation

Thanh Dat Le, Lyuzhou Ye, Yan Huang

Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Main Track. Pages 152-160. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2025/18

This paper addresses the source localization problem by introducing RoLocMe, a multi-agent reinforcement learning system that integrates SkipNet - a skip-connection-based RSS estimation model - with parallel Q-learning. SkipNet predicts RSS propagation of the entire search region, enabling agents to explore efficiently. The agents leverage dueling DQN, value decomposition, and λ-returns to learn cooperative policies. RoLocMe converges faster and achieves at least 20% higher success rates than existing methods in dense and sparse reward settings. A drop-one ablation study confirms each component’s importance and RoLocMe’s effectiveness for larger teams.
Keywords:
Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: MAS: Applications
Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: MAS: Multi-agent planning
Machine Learning: ML: Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
Planning and Scheduling: PS: Distributed and multi-agent planning