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RoboCup Rescue as multiagent task allocation among teams: experiments with task interdependencies

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Abstract

This paper addresses distributed task allocation among teams of agents in a RoboCup Rescue scenario. We are primarily concerned with testing different mechanisms that formalize issues underlying implicit coordination among teams of agents. These mechanisms are developed, implemented, and evaluated using two algorithms: Swarm-GAP and LA-DCOP. The latter bases task allocation on a comparison between an agent’s capability to perform a task and the capability demanded by this task. Swarm-GAP is a probabilistic approach in which an agent selects a task using a model inspired by task allocation among social insects. Both algorithms were also compared to another one that allocates tasks in a greedy way. Departing from previous works that tackle task allocation in the rescue scenario only among fire brigades, here we consider the various actors in the RoboCup Rescue, a step forward in the direction of realizing the concept of extreme teams. Tasks are allocated to teams of agents without explicit negotiation and using only local information. Our results show that the performance of Swarm-GAP and LA-DCOP are similar and that they outperform a greedy strategy. Also, it is possible to see that using more sophisticated mechanisms for task selection does pay off in terms of score.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Informática, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Caixa Postal 15064, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

    Paulo Roberto Ferreira Jr., Fernando dos Santos, Ana L. C. Bazzan, Daniel Epstein & Samuel J. Waskow

  2. Instituto de Física e Matemática, Departamento de Informática, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Caixa Postal 354, CEP 96010-900, Pelotas, RS, Brazil

    Paulo Roberto Ferreira Jr.

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  1. Paulo Roberto Ferreira Jr.
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  2. Fernando dos Santos
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  3. Ana L. C. Bazzan
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  4. Daniel Epstein
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  5. Samuel J. Waskow
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Correspondence to Ana L. C. Bazzan.

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Ferreira, P.R., dos Santos, F., Bazzan, A.L.C. et al. RoboCup Rescue as multiagent task allocation among teams: experiments with task interdependencies. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 20, 421–443 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-009-9087-8

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