Asynchronous gradient-based optimisation for team decision making

This paper describes a decentralised asynchronous algorithm for negotiation in team decision and control problems, allowing multiple decision makers to propose and refine future decisions to optimise a common non-linear objective or cost function. A convergence requirement provides an intuitive relationship between the communication frequency, transmission delays and the degree of inter-agent coupling inherent in the system. The coupling is defined by the cross derivative of the objective function. The algorithm is applied to the control of multiple vehicles performing a search task with simulation results given.