Stochastic Initial States Randomization Method for Robust Knowledge Transfer in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

Reinforcement learning, which are also studied in the field of defense, face the problem of sample efficiency, which requires a large amount of data to train. Transfer learning has been introduced to address this problem, but its effectiveness is sometimes marginal because the model does not effectively leverage prior knowledge. In this study, we propose a stochastic initial state randomization(SISR) method to enable robust knowledge transfer that promote generalized and sufficient knowledge transfer. We developed a simulation environment involving a cooperative robot transportation task. Experimental results show that successful tasks are achieved when SISR is applied, while tasks fail when SISR is not applied. We also analyzed how the amount of state information collected by the agents changes with the application of SISR.