Abstract
We present two key components of a principled method for constructing modular, heterogeneous swarms. First, we generalize a well-known technique for representing swarm behaviors to extend the power of multiagent systems by specializing agents and their interactions. Second, a novel graph-based method is introduced for designing swarm-based behaviors for multiagent teams. This method includes engineer-provided knowledge through explicit design decisions pertaining to specialization, heterogeneity, and modularity. We show the representational power of our generalized representation can be used to evolve a solution to a challenging multiagent resource protection problem. We also construct a modular design by hand, resulting in a scalable and intuitive heterogeneous solution for the resource protection problem.
This work was performed under Office of Naval Research Work Orders N0001406WX20006 and N0001406WX30002.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bonabeau, E., Dorigo, M., Theraulaz, G.: Swarm Intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1999)
Dorigo, M., Stützle, T.: Ant Colony Optimization. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)
Kennedy, J., Eberhart, R.C.: Swarm Intelligence. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco (2001)
Kube, C.R., Zhang, H.: Collective Robotics: From Social Insects to Robots. Adaptive Behavior 2, 189–218 (1994)
Spears, W., Gordon, D.: Using Artificial Physics to control agents. In: IEEE International Conference on Information, Intelligence, and Systems, pp. 281–288. IEEE, Los Alamitos (1999)
Spears, W., Spears, D., Hamann, J., Heil, R.: Distributed, physics-based control of swarms of vehicles. Autonomous Robots 17, 137–162 (2004)
Howard, A., Mataric, M., Sukhatme, G.: Mobile sensor network deployment using potential fields: A distributed, scalable solution to the area coverage problem. In: Sixth International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotics Systems (2002)
Spears, W., Spears, D., Heil, R.: A formal analysis of potential energy in a multiagent systems. In: Hinchey, M.G., Rash, J.L., Truszkowski, W.F., Rouff, C.A. (eds.) FAABS 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3228, pp. 131–145. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Hettiarachchi, S., Spears, W., Kerr, W., Zarzhitsky, D., Green, D.: Distributed agent evolution with dynamic adaptation to local unexpected scenarios. In: Second GSFC/IEEE Workshop on Radical Agent Concepts, Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Hettiarachchi, S., Spears, W.: Moving swarm formations through obstacle fields. In: International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1, pp. 97–103. CSREA Press (2005)
Luke, S., Balan, G.C., Panait, L., Cioffi-Revilla, C., Paus, S.: Mason: A java multi-agent simulation library. In: Agent 2003 Conference on Challenges in Social Simulation (2003)
Winfield, A., Harper, C., Nembrini, J.: Towards dependable swarms and a new discipline of swarm engineering. In: 2004 SAB Swarm Robotics Workshop, pp. 133–148 (2004)
Kazadi, S.: On the Development of a Swarm Engineering Methodology. In: IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pp. 1423–1428. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2005)
Chang, K., Hwang, J., Lee, E., Kazadi, S.: The Application of Swarm Engineering Technique to Robust Multi-chain Robot System. In: IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, pp. 1429–1434. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2005)
Reif, J.H., Wang, H.: Social Potential Fields: A Distributed Behavioral Control for Autonomous Robots. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 27(3), 171–194 (1999)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wiegand, R.P., Potter, M.A., Sofge, D.A., Spears, W.M. (2006). A Generalized Graph-Based Method for Engineering Swarm Solutions to Multiagent Problems. In: Runarsson, T.P., Beyer, HG., Burke, E., Merelo-Guervós, J.J., Whitley, L.D., Yao, X. (eds) Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN IX. PPSN 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4193. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11844297_75
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11844297_75
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-38990-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-38991-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)