Market-Based Distributed Task Selection in Multi-agent Swarms
IAT '06 Proceedings of the IEEE/WIC/ACM international conference on Intelligent Agent Technology
Auction-based multi-robot task allocation in COMSTAR
Proceedings of the 6th international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems
Dynamic Pricing Algorithms for Task Allocation in Multi-agent Swarms
Massively Multi-Agent Technology
Negotiation with reaction functions for solving complex task allocation problems
IROS'09 Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ international conference on Intelligent robots and systems
Distributed task selection in multi-agent based swarms using heuristic strategies
SAB'06 Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Swarm robotics
Multi-robot task allocation using compound emotion algorithm
APPT'07 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Advanced parallel processing technologies
A delegation-based architecture for collaborative robotics
AOSE'10 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Agent-oriented software engineering
Complex task allocation in mixed-initiative delegation: a UAV case study
PRIMA'10 Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems
Multi-agent robotic system architecture for effective task allocation and management
EHAC'12/ISPRA/NANOTECHNOLOGY'12 Proceedings of the 11th WSEAS international conference on Electronics, Hardware, Wireless and Optical Communications, and proceedings of the 11th WSEAS international conference on Signal Processing, Robotics and Automation, and proceedings of the 4th WSEAS international conference on Nanotechnology
Large-scale cooperative task distribution on peer-to-peer networks
Web Intelligence and Agent Systems
A comparative study between optimization and market-based approaches to multi-robot task allocation
Advances in Artificial Intelligence
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Despite more than a decade of experimental work in multi-robot systems, important theoretical aspects of multi-robot coordination mechanisms have, to date, been largely ignored. To address part of this negligence, this dissertation focuses on the problem of multi-robot task allocation (MRTA). Most work on MRTA has been ad hoc and empirical, with many coordination architectures having been proposed and validated in a proof-of-concept fashion, but infrequently analyzed. With the goal of bringing some objective grounding to this important area of research, this dissertation presents a formal study of MRTA problems. A domain-independent taxonomy of MRTA problems is given, and it is shown how many such problems can be viewed as instances of other, well-studied, optimization problems. By casting MRTA problems in the well-understood framework of optimization, a half-century of work in operations research, game theory, economics, and network flows can be adapted for use in robotic domains. This dissertation demonstrates how such theory can be used for analysis and greater understanding of existing approaches to task allocation, and suggests how the same theory can be used in the synthesis of new approaches. Although vital for the advancement of the field, analysis is only one component of a comprehensive research agenda. Sensor-actuator systems such as robots present a rich, complex problem domain that can exhibit significant levels of noise and uncertainty. One must implement and empirically validate proposed MRTA algorithms. Thus this dissertation also presents experimental work with an auction-based task allocation system, implemented on physical robots. Optimization theory is used to explain how and why this approach is successful. This kind of empirical work is a natural complement to formal analysis, and can serve the crucial role of suggesting modifications to the formal model that is analyzed. Such experiments require substantial supporting software infrastructure. This dissertation describes the underlying software facilities that were developed for experimental use in the study of MRTA, as well as for more general use. Specifically discussed is the Player/Stage project, which produces high-quality Open Source software to support robotics research, with the goal of providing a standard platform for mobile robot experimentation and simulation.