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Monte-Carlo Fork Search for Cooperative Path-Finding

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Computer Games (CGW 2013)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 408))

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Abstract

This paper presents Monte-Carlo Fork Search (MCFS), a new algorithm that solves Cooperative Path-Finding (CPF) problems with simultaneity. The background is Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and Nested Monte-Carlo Search (NMCS). Concerning CPF, MCFS avoids to enter into the curse of the very high branching factor. Regarding MCTS, the key idea of MCFS is to build a tree balanced over the whole game tree. To do so, after a simulation, MCFS stores the whole sequence of actions in the tree, which enables MCFS to fork new sequences at any depth in the built tree. This idea fits CPF problems in which the branching factor is too large for MCTS or A* approaches, and in which congestion may arise at any distance from the start state. With sufficient time and memory, Nested MCFS (NMCFS) solves congestion problems in the literature finding better solutions than the state-of-the-art solutions, and it solves N-puzzles without hole near-optimally. The algorithm is anytime and complete. The scalability of the approach is shown for gridsize up to \(200\times 200\) and up to \(400\) agents.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. LIPADE, Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France

    Bruno Bouzy

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  1. Bruno Bouzy
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Correspondence to Bruno Bouzy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France

    Tristan Cazenave

  2. Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Mark H.M. Winands

  3. School of Information Science, JAIST, Nomi, Japan

    Hiroyuki Iida

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Bouzy, B. (2014). Monte-Carlo Fork Search for Cooperative Path-Finding. In: Cazenave, T., Winands, M., Iida, H. (eds) Computer Games. CGW 2013. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 408. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05428-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05428-5_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-05427-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05428-5

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