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

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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.

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    Adam Campbell & Annie S. Wu

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Campbell, A., Wu, A.S. Multi-agent role allocation: issues, approaches, and multiple perspectives. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 22, 317–355 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-010-9127-4

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