# A perspective on multi-agent communication for information fusion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.03743 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.03743/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 9 Nov 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Granger Causality Based Hierarchical Time Series Clustering for State Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.04206/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Collaborative decision making in multi-agent systems typically requires a predefined communication protocol among agents. Usually, agent-level observations are locally processed and information is exchanged using the predefined protocol, enabling the team to perform more efficiently than each agent operating in isolation. In this work, we consider the situation where agents, with complementary sensing modalities must co-operate to achieve a common goal/task by learning an efficient communication protocol. We frame the problem within an actor-critic scheme, where the agents learn optimal policies in a centralized fashion, while taking action in a distributed manner. We provide an interpretation of the emergent communication between the agents. We observe that the information exchanged is not just an encoding of the raw sensor data but is, rather, a specific set of directive actions that depend on the overall task. Simulation results demonstrate the interpretability of the learnt communication in a variety of tasks.