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Autonomous task allocation by artificial evolution for robotic swarms in complex tasks

Published: 01 March 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Swarm robotics is a field in which multiple robots coordinate their collective behavior autonomously to accomplish a given task without any form of centralized control. In swarm robotics, task allocation refers to the behavior resulting in robots being dynamically distributed over different sub-tasks, which is often required for solving complex tasks. It has been well recognized that evolutionary robotics is a promising approach to the development of collective behaviors for robotic swarms. However, the artificial evolution often suffers from two issues--the bootstrapping problem and deception--especially when the underlying task is profoundly complex. In this study, we propose a two-step scheme consisting of task partitioning and autonomous task allocation to overcome these difficulties. We conduct computer simulation experiments where robotic swarms have to accomplish a complex collective foraging problem, and the results show that the proposed approach leads to perform more effectively than a conventional evolutionary robotics approach.

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Published In

cover image Artificial Life and Robotics
Artificial Life and Robotics  Volume 24, Issue 1
March 2019
134 pages

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Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 01 March 2019

Author Tags

  1. Autonomous task allocation
  2. Evolutionary robotics
  3. Robotic swarm
  4. Task partitioning

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  • (2023)Swarm Robotics: A Survey from a Multi-Tasking PerspectiveACM Computing Surveys10.1145/361165256:2(1-38)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2023
  • (2023)A data grid strategy for non-prehensile object transport by a multi-robot systemArtificial Life and Robotics10.1007/s10015-023-00908-528:4(680-689)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
  • (2023)Echo state networks for embodied evolution in robotic swarmsArtificial Life and Robotics10.1007/s10015-022-00828-w28:1(139-147)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2023
  • (2022)Topology and weight evolving artificial neural networks in cooperative transport by a robotic swarmArtificial Life and Robotics10.1007/s10015-021-00716-927:2(324-332)Online publication date: 1-May-2022

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