Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Autonomous role assignment and task allocation in scalable swarm robotic systems using local interactions

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Artificial Life and Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel method for autonomous role assignment and task allocation using the response threshold model through local interactions in scalable swarm robotic systems. The response threshold describes sensitivity for pheromones of ants. In reality, there are high and low pheromone sensitivity ants. It is known that the pheromone sensitivity of ants is related to autonomous role assignment and task allocation. In conventional response threshold models, it is assumed that an ant can gain the number of all the workers in an ant colony. However, it is difficult for an ant to gain and deal with all the workers, because ant functions are very limited. Thus, we use a response threshold model that refers to the number of encountered foraging ants instead of the number of all the workers. In this study, we apply the proposed method to ant foraging problems and show the robustness of the proposed method in dynamic environments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Nolfi S, Floreano D (2000) Evolutionary robotics: the biology, intelligence, and technology of self-organizing machines. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bloembergen D, Tuyls K, Hennes D, Kaisers M (2015) Evolutionary dynamics of multi-agent learning: a survey. J Artif Intell Res 53:659–697

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Navarro I, Matía F (2013) An Introduction to Swarm Robotics, ISRN Robotics, Vol.2013, Article ID 608164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Dorigo M, Stutzle T (2004) Ant Colony Optimization. MIT Press, Cambridge

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Miller P (2010) The Smart Swarm. Avery, Glendale

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bonabeau E, Sobkowski A, Theraulaz G, Deneubourg JL (1997) Adaptive task allocation inspired by a model of division of labor in social insects. In: Proceedings of BCEC97, pp.36-45

  7. Hasegawa E, Ishii Y, Tada K, Kobayashi K, Yoshimura J (2016) Lazy workers are necessary for long-term sustainability in insect societies. Sci Rep 6:20846

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Nakayama K, Sueoka Y, Ishikawa M, Sugimoto Y, Osuka K (2014) Control of transportation trails by distributed autonomous agents inspired by the foraging behavior of ants. Nonlinear Theory Appl 5(4):487–498

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ogihara Y, Yamanaka O, Akino T, Izumi S, Awazu A, Nishimori H (2015) Switching of primarily relied information by ants: a combinatorial study of experiment and modeling, mathematical approaches to biological systems: networks. oscillations and collective motions. Springer, heidelberg, pp119–137

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. Yamada K (2016) Specialization in Swarm Robotics using local interactions. Int J Eng Res Technol 5(10):103–108

    Google Scholar 

  11. Fujisawa R, Imamura H, Hashimoto T, Matsuno F (2008) Communication using pheromone field for multiple robots. In: Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ 2008 international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS2008), pp.1391-1396

  12. Iwai T, Wakamiya N, Murata M (2012) Response threshold model-based device assignment for cooperative resource sharing in a WSAN. IN: International journal of swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation, Vol.1, April

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant number JP 18K11554.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Toyo University, 2100 Kujirai, Kawagoe, Saitama, 350-8585, Japan

    Kazuaki Yamada

Authors
  1. Kazuaki Yamada
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kazuaki Yamada.

Additional information

This work was presented in part at the 2nd International Symposium on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics, Kyoto, October 29–November 1, 2017.

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yamada, K. Autonomous role assignment and task allocation in scalable swarm robotic systems using local interactions. Artif Life Robotics 23, 636–644 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-018-0500-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-018-0500-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation