Work

Task Allocation with Load Management in Multi-Agent Teams

Year: 2022

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: In operations of multi-agent teams ranging from homogeneous robot swarms to heterogeneous human-autonomy teams, unexpected events might occur. While efficiency of operation for multi-agent task allocation problems is the primary objective, it is essential that the decision-making framework is intelligent enough to manage unexpected task load with limited resources. Otherwise, operation effectiveness would drastically plummet with overloaded agents facing unforeseen risks. In this work, we present a decision-making framework for multiagent teams to learn task allocation with the consideration of load management through decentralized reinforcement learning, where idling is encouraged and unnecessary resource usage is avoided. We illustrate the effect of load management on team performance and explore agent behaviors in example scenarios. Furthermore, a measure of agent importance in collaboration is developed to infer team resilience when facing handling potential overload situations.

Source: Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation/Proceedings

DOI: 10.1109/icra46639.2022.9811374

Authors: Haochen Wu, Amin Ghadami, Alparslan Emrah Bayrak, Jonathon M. Smereka, Bogdan I. Epureanu

Institutions: University of Michigan, Stevens Institute of Technology, United States Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, United States Army, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle System Center

Language: English

Topic: Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems

Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: University of Michigan

Award: G7767704270