This chapter presents multi-policy decision-making (MPDM): a novel approach to navigating in dynamic multi-agent environments. Rather than planning the trajectory of the robot explicitly, the planning process selects one of a set of closed-loop behaviors whose utility can be predicted through forward simulation that captures the complex interactions between the actions of these agents. These polices capture different high-level behavior and intentions, such as driving along a lane, turning at an intersection, or following pedestrians. We present two different scenarios where MPDM has been applied successfully: an autonomous driving environment models vehicle behavior for both our vehicle and nearby vehicles and a social environment, where multiple agents or pedestrians configure a dynamic environment for autonomous robot navigation. We present extensive validation for MPDM on both scenarios, using simulated and real-world experiments.
@inbook{cunningham2019, AUTHOR = {Alex Cunningham and Enric Galceran and Dhanvin Mehta and Gonzalo Ferrer and Ryan Eustice and Edwin Olson}, YEAR = {2019}, MONTH = {January}, PAGES = {201-223}, TITLE = {{MPDM}: Multi-policy Decision-Making from Autonomous Driving to Social Robot Navigation}, ISBN = {978-3-319-91568-5}, JOURNAL = {Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences}, DOI = {10.1007/978-3-319-91569-2_10}, }