Decentralized task allocation with coupled constraints in complex missions

• Published in: Proceedings of the 2011 American Control Conference pp. 1642 - 1649
• Main Authors: Whitten, Andrew K., Han-Lim Choi, Johnson, Luke B., How, Jonathan P.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.06.2011
• Subjects: Fuels; Indexes; Planning; Protocols; Time factors; Timing; Vehicles
• ISBN: 1457700808; 9781457700804
• ISSN: 0743-1619
• DOI: 10.1109/ACC.2011.5990917

This paper presents a decentralized algorithm that creates feasible assignments for a network of autonomous agents in the presence of coupled constraints. The coupled constraints address complex mission characteristics that include assignment relationships, where the value of a task is conditioned on whether or not another task has been assigned, and temporal relationships, where the value of a task is conditioned on when it is performed relative to other tasks. The new algorithm is developed as an extension to the Consensus-Based Bundle Algorithm (CBBA), introducing the notion of pessimistic or optimistic bidding strategies and the relative timing constraints between tasks. This extension, called Coupled-Constraint CBBA (CCBBA), is compared to the baseline in a complex mission simulation and is found to outperform the baseline, particularly for task-rich scenarios.