Multi-agent role allocation: issues, approaches, and multiple perspectives

    Authors

    A. Campbell;A. S. Wu

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Auton. Agents Multi-Agent Syst.

    Keywords

    Multi-agent systems; Role allocation; Task allocation; DIVISION-OF-LABOR; MULTIROBOT TASK ALLOCATION; INSECT SOCIETIES; SOCIAL; INSECTS; NEURAL-NETWORKS; MOBILE ROBOTS; THE-ART; SYSTEMS; COORDINATION; POLYETHISM; Automation & Control Systems; Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence

    Abstract

    In cooperative multi-agent systems, roles are used as a design concept when creating large systems, they are known to facilitate specialization of agents, and they can help to reduce interference in multi-robot domains. The types of tasks that the agents are asked to solve and the communicative capabilities of the agents significantly affect the way roles are used in cooperative multi-agent systems. Along with a discussion of these issues about roles in multi-agent systems, this article compares computational models of the role allocation problem, presents the notion of explicitly versus implicitly defined roles, gives a survey of the methods used to approach role allocation problems, and concludes with a list of open research questions related to roles in multi-agent systems.

    Journal Title

    Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

    Volume

    22

    Issue/Number

    2

    Publication Date

    1-1-2011

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    317

    Last Page

    355

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000287201300004

    ISSN

    1387-2532

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