Kamal Mammadov | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Distributed Marginal Return: A Communication-Efficient Algorithm for Multi-Agent Weapon Target Assignment

The Weapon-Target Assignment (WTA) problem in distributed multi-agent systems is challenged by limited situational awareness and communication constraints. Existing distributed methods, such as auction-consensus algorithms, typically assume task-value independence, a simplification that fails to capture the coupled effects of multi-weapon assignments. This paper introduces the Distributed Marginal Return (DMR) algorithm, a novel decentralized approach that generalizes auction-consensus frameworks. DMR enables agents to compute bids based on marginal return and uses a consensus protocol to resolve conflicts, allowing multiple non-conflicting proposals to be accepted in parallel for cooperative optimization with minimal communication. A key theoretical contribution is our proof that the marginal returns of non-conflicting bids are additive, a property that ensures global consistency and validates our parallel acceptance mechanism. Extensive simulations demonstrate that DMR significantly outperforms baseline algorithms in both solution quality and communication efficiency, offering a scalable and robust solution for real-world distributed command and control applications.

cs.MA↗

arXiv2025

Area-Optimal Control Strategies for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Pursuit

This paper presents a novel strategy for a multi-agent pursuit-evasion game involving multiple faster pursuers with heterogenous speeds and a single slower evader. We define a geometric region, the evader's safe-reachable set, as the intersection of Apollonius circles derived from each pursuer-evader pair. The capture strategy is formulated as a zero-sum game where the pursuers cooperatively minimize the area of this set, while the evader seeks to maximize it, effectively playing a game of spatial containment. By deriving the analytical gradients of the safe-reachable set's area with respect to agent positions, we obtain closed-form, instantaneous optimal control laws for the heading of each agent. These strategies are computationally efficient, allowing for real-time implementation. Simulations demonstrate that the gradient-based controls effectively steer the pursuers to systematically shrink the evader's safe region, leading to guaranteed capture. This area-minimization approach provides a clear geometric objective for cooperative capture.

cs.MA↗