Towards efficient multiagent task allocation in the RoboCup Rescue: a biologically-inspired approach

• Published in: Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems Vol. 22; no. 3; pp. 465 - 486
• Main Authors: dos Santos, Fernando, Bazzan, Ana L. C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.05.2011
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Computer Science; Computer Systems Organization and Communication Networks; Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; Optimisation in multiagent systems; Swarm intelligence; Task allocation; Robocup Rescue
• ISSN: 1387-2532; 1573-7454
• DOI: 10.1007/s10458-010-9136-3

This paper addresses team formation in the RoboCup Rescue centered on task allocation. We follow a previous approach that is based on so-called extreme teams, which have four key characteristics: agents act in domains that are dynamic; agents may perform multiple tasks; agents have overlapping functionality regarding the execution of each task but differing levels of capability; and some tasks may depict constraints such as simultaneous execution. So far these four characteristics have not been fully tested in domains such as the RoboCup Rescue. We use a swarm intelligence based approach, address all characteristics, and compare it to other two GAP-based algorithms. Experiments where computational effort, communication load, and the score obtained in the RoboCup Rescue aremeasured, show that our approach outperforms the others.