22nd AIAI 2026, 16 - 19 July 2026, Chania, Crete, Greece

A Comparative Analysis of DRL-MD-HNFP and A3C for Multi-Agent Coordination

Forero Leonardo, De Mello Jr. Harold, Pacheco Marco, Kohler Manoela

Abstract:

  This paper presents a comparative analysis between two distinct deep reinforcement learning approaches for multi-agent coordination: the Deep Reinforcement Learning Market-Driven HierarchicalNeuro-Fuzzy Politree (DRL-MD-HNFP) and the Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic (A3C). While DRL-MD-HNFP utilizes explicit coordination mechanisms (Market-Driven and Coordination Graphs) within a hierarchical neuro-fuzzy architecture, A3C relies on a decentralized actor-critic approach with asynchronous parallel training. We evaluate both methods on two standard multi-agent reinforcement learning bench- marks: the pursuit-evasion game and a 3v3 robotic soccer simulation. Our experiments focus on comparing convergence speed, sample efficiency, final policy quality, and scalability. The results provide insights into the trade-offs between explicit, structured coordination and emergent coordination from decentralized learning, offering guidance for practitioners on selecting appropriate algorithms for different multi-agent problem domains  

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