1. Multi-Robot Coalitions Formation with Deadlines: Complexity Analysis and Solutions
- Author
-
Oscar Valero, José Guerrero, and Gabriel Oliver
- Subjects
0209 industrial biotechnology ,Time Factors ,Linear programming ,Computer science ,lcsh:Medicine ,02 engineering and technology ,Efficiency ,Polynomials ,Task (project management) ,Reduction (complexity) ,Mathematical and Statistical Techniques ,020901 industrial engineering & automation ,conducta cooperativa ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,Foraging ,Cooperative Behavior ,lcsh:Science ,Data Management ,eficiencia ,Multidisciplinary ,Animal Behavior ,Applied Mathematics ,Simulation and Modeling ,Robotics ,Physical Sciences ,Engineering and Technology ,020201 artificial intelligence & image processing ,Robots ,Cybernetics ,Algorithms ,Research Article ,Optimization ,Computer and Information Sciences ,Mathematical optimization ,Carry (arithmetic) ,Research and Analysis Methods ,algoritmos ,factores de tiempo ,Point (geometry) ,Linear Programming ,Taxonomy ,Behavior ,Robotic Behavior ,Mechanical Engineering ,lcsh:R ,Biology and Life Sciences ,Algebra ,robótica ,Robot ,lcsh:Q ,Zoology ,Mathematical Functions ,Mathematics ,Integer (computer science) - Abstract
Multi-robot task allocation is one of the main problems to address in order to design a multi-robot system, very especially when robots form coalitions that must carry out tasks before a deadline. A lot of factors affect the performance of these systems and among them, this paper is focused on the physical interference effect, produced when two or more robots want to access the same point simultaneously. To our best knowledge, this paper presents the first formal description of multi-robot task allocation that includes a model of interference. Thanks to this description, the complexity of the allocation problem is analyzed. Moreover, the main contribution of this paper is to provide the conditions under which the optimal solution of the aforementioned allocation problem can be obtained solving an integer linear problem. The optimal results are compared to previous allocation algorithms already proposed by the first two authors of this paper and with a new method proposed in this paper. The results obtained show how the new task allocation algorithms reach up more than an 80% of the median of the optimal solution, outperforming previous auction algorithms with a huge reduction of the execution time., This work has been partially supported by project DPI2014-57746-C03-2-R and FEDER funds.
- Published
- 2017