GePA*SE: Generalized Edge-Based Parallel A* for Slow Evaluations

Parallel search algorithms have been shown to improve planning speed by harnessing the multithreading capability of modern processors. One such algorithm PA*SE achieves this by parallelizing state expansions, whereas another algorithm ePA*SE achieves this by effectively parallelizing edge evaluations. ePA*SE targets domains in which the action space comprises actions with expensive but similar evaluation times. However, in a number of robotics domains, the action space is heterogenous in the computational effort required to evaluate the cost of an action and its outcome. Motivated by this, we introduce GePA*SE: Generalized Edge-based Parallel A* for Slow Evaluations, which generalizes the key ideas of PA*SE and ePA*SE, i. e. , parallelization of state expansions and edge evaluations, respectively. This extends its applicability to domains that have actions requiring varying computational effort to evaluate them. The open-source code for GePA*SE, along with the baselines, is available here: https: //github. com/shohinm/parallel_search

Authors

• Shohin Mukherjee
• Maxim Likhachev

Keywords

• Search In Robotics
• External-memory And Parallel Search