Decoupling Geometric Planning and Execution in Scalable Multi-Agent Path Finding

Abstract

Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) requires collision-free trajectories for multiple agents on a shared graph, often with the objective of minimizing the sum-of-costs (SOC). Many optimal and bounded-suboptimal solvers rely on time-expanded models and centralized conflict resolution, which limits scalability in large or dense instances. We propose a hybrid prioritized framework that separates geometric planning from execution-time conflict resolution. In the first stage, Geometric Conflict Preemption (GCP) plans agents sequentially with A* on the original graph while inflating costs for transitions entering vertices used by higher-priority paths, encouraging spatial detours without explicit time reasoning. In the second stage, a Decentralized Local Controller (DLC) executes the geometric paths using per-vertex FIFO authorization queues and inserts wait actions only when required to avoid vertex and edge-swap conflicts. Experiments on standard benchmark maps with up to 1000 agents show that the method scales with an empirically near-linear runtime trend and attains a 100% success rate on instances satisfying the geometric feasibility assumption. On bottleneck-heavy maps, GCP reduces synchronization-induced waiting and often improves SOC on bottleneck-heavy maps