mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Graph Convolutional Reinforcement Learning

arXiv 1810.09202 ↗First posted 22 Oct 2018cs.LG cs.AI cs.MAcited by 148

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

Learning to cooperate is crucially important in multi-agent environments. The key is to understand the mutual interplay between agents. However, multi-agent environments are highly dynamic, where agents keep moving and their neighbors change quickly. This makes it hard to learn abstract representations of mutual interplay between agents. To tackle these difficulties, we propose graph convolutional reinforcement learning, where graph convolution adapts to the dynamics of the underlying graph of the multi-agent environment, and relation kernels capture the interplay between agents by their relation representations. Latent features produced by convolutional layers from gradually increased receptive fields are exploited to learn cooperation, and cooperation is further improved by temporal relation regularization for consistency. Empirically, we show that our method substantially outperforms existing methods in a variety of cooperative scenarios.

Key facts. Cited by 148 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 22 Oct 2018.

Builds on

No reference list yet.

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 29; 2022: 29; 2023: 25; 2024: 18; 2025: 22; 2026: 25.

148 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2022A Survey of Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning with Communicationcited by 103
  2. 2021Residual Pathway Priors for Soft Equivariance Constraintscited by 74
  3. 2021Graph-Based Deep Learning for Medical Diagnosis and Analysis: Past, Present and Futurecited by 67
  4. 2021A Survey of Deep RL and IL for Autonomous Driving Policy Learningcited by 59
  5. 2021ToM2C: Target-oriented Multi-agent Communication and Cooperation with Theory of Mindcited by 57
  6. 2021Hierarchical Representations and Explicit Memory: Learning Effective Navigation Policies on 3D Scene Graphs using Graph Neural Networkscited by 50
  7. 2022Scalable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning through Intelligent Information Aggregationcited by 34
  8. 2021Learning Selective Communication for Multi-Agent Path Findingcited by 32
  9. 2021Distributed Heuristic Multi-Agent Path Finding with Communicationcited by 31
  10. 2025Internet of Agents: Fundamentals, Applications, and Challengescited by 31
  11. 2023Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 30
  12. 2022Challenges and Opportunities in Deep Reinforcement Learning with Graph Neural Networks: A Comprehensive review of Algorithms and Applicationscited by 27
38 more
  1. 2023A Review of Cooperation in Multi-agent Learningcited by 27
  2. 2021Multi-Agent MDP Homomorphic Networkscited by 24
  3. 2022Maximum Class Separation as Inductive Bias in One Matrixcited by 21
  4. 2023Multimodal Data Integration for Oncology in the Era of Deep Neural Networks: A Reviewcited by 20
  5. 2021A Survey of Deep Reinforcement Learning in Recommender Systems: A Systematic Review and Future Directionscited by 19
  6. 2021Learning Efficient Multi-Agent Cooperative Visual Explorationcited by 19
  7. 2021Collaborative Visual Navigationcited by 18
  8. 2022Reinforcement learning on graphs: A surveycited by 18
  9. 2023Asynchronous Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Real-Time Multi-Robot Cooperative Explorationcited by 17
  10. 2024Group-Aware Coordination Graph for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 17
  11. 2022Equivariant Networks for Zero-Shot Coordinationcited by 16
  12. 2021Divergence-Regularized Multi-Agent Actor-Criticcited by 15
  13. 2023Scalable Primal-Dual Actor-Critic Method for Safe Multi-Agent RL with General Utilitiescited by 15
  14. 2024N-Agent Ad Hoc Teamworkcited by 15
  15. 2022Multi-Agent Policy Transfer via Task Relationship Modelingcited by 14
  16. 2022QGNN: Value Function Factorisation with Graph Neural Networkscited by 14
  17. 2022Multi-Agent Coordination via Multi-Level Communicationcited by 14
  18. 2025Graph World Modelcited by 14
  19. 2023Context-aware Communication for Multi-agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 13
  20. 2022A Survey on Large-Population Systems and Scalable Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 12
  21. 2022A General Learning Framework for Open Ad Hoc Teamwork Using Graph-based Policy Learningcited by 12
  22. 2021Learning Emergent Discrete Message Communication for Cooperative Reinforcement Learningcited by 11
  23. 2022Distributed Reinforcement Learning for Robot Teams: A Reviewcited by 11
  24. 2022Social Network Structure Shapes Innovation: Experience-sharing in RL with SAPIENScited by 10
  25. 2023MAGNNETO: A Graph Neural Network-based Multi-Agent system for Traffic Engineeringcited by 10
  26. 2023An Analysis of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Decentralized Inventory Control Systemscited by 10
  27. 2023On the Opportunities and Challenges of Offline Reinforcement Learning for Recommender Systemscited by 10
  28. 2025Geometry-aware RL for Manipulation of Varying Shapes and Deformable Objectscited by 10
  29. 2026The Five Ws of Multi-Agent Communication: Who Talks to Whom, When, What, and Why -- A Survey from MARL to Emergent Language and LLMscited by 10
  30. 2022Agent-Temporal Attention for Reward Redistribution in Episodic Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
  31. 2023ESP: Exploiting Symmetry Prior for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
  32. 2024Multi-Sender Persuasion: A Computational Perspectivecited by 9
  33. 2021Joint Attention for Multi-Agent Coordination and Social Learningcited by 8
  34. 2021Is Machine Learning Ready for Traffic Engineering Optimization?cited by 8
  35. 2022Interaction Pattern Disentangling for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 8
  36. 2022Concentration Network for Reinforcement Learning of Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systemscited by 7
  37. 2023Learning Multi-Agent Intention-Aware Communication for Optimal Multi-Order Execution in Financecited by 7
  38. 2023Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Based on Representational Communication for Large-Scale Traffic Signal Controlcited by 7

50 most cited of 148 All 148 (JSON)