Abstract
In this paper we study an extension of the multi-robot task allocation problem for online tasks requiring pickup and delivery. We extend our previous work on sequential single-cluster auctions to handle this more complex task allocation problem. Our empirical experiments analyse this technique in the domain of an environment with dynamic task insertion. We consider the trade-off between solution quality and overall planning time in globally reallocating all uncompleted tasks versus local replanning upon the insertion of a new task. Our key result shows that global reallocation of all uncompleted tasks outperforms local replanning in minimising robot path distances.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Berhault, M., Huang, H., Keskinocak, P., Koenig, S., Elmaghraby, W., Griffin, P.M., Kleywegt, A.J.: Robot exploration with combinatorial auctions. In: IROS, pp. 1957–1962 (2003)
Dias, M.B., Zlot, R., Kalra, N., Stentz, A.: Market-based multirobot coordination: A survey and analysis. Proceedings of the IEEE 94(7), 1257–1270 (2006)
Dias, M.B., Stentz, A.: Opportunistic optimization for market-based multirobot control. In: Intelligent Robots and Systems, vol. 3, pp. 2714–2720. IEEE (2002)
Ester, M., Kriegel, H.P., Sander, J., Xu, X.: A density-based algorithm for discovering clusters in large spatial databases with noise. In: KDD, pp. 226–231 (1996)
Fischer, K.: Cooperative transportation scheduling: An application domain for dai. Applied Artificial Intelligence 10(1), 1–34 (1996)
Heap, B., Pagnucco, M.: Sequential single-cluster auctions for robot task allocation. In: Wang, D., Reynolds, M. (eds.) AI 2011. LNCS, vol. 7106, pp. 412–421. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Heap, B., Pagnucco, M.: Analysis of cluster formation techniques for multi-robot task allocation using sequential single-cluster auctions. In: Thielscher, M., Zhang, D. (eds.) AI 2012. LNCS, vol. 7691, pp. 839–850. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Heap, B., Pagnucco, M.: Repeated sequential auctions with dynamic task clusters. In: AAAI (2012)
Koenig, S., Keskinocak, P., Tovey, C.A.: Progress on agent coordination with cooperative auctions. In: AAAI (2010)
Koenig, S., Tovey, C.A., Lagoudakis, M.G., Markakis, E., Kempe, D., Keskinocak, P., Kleywegt, A.J., Meyerson, A., Jain, S.: The power of sequential single-item auctions for agent coordination. In: AAAI, pp. 1625–1629 (2006)
Koenig, S., Tovey, C.A., Zheng, X., Sungur, I.: Sequential bundle-bid single-sale auction algorithms for decentralized control. In: IJCAI, pp. 1359–1365 (2007)
Kohout, R.C., Erol, K.: In-time agent-based vehicle routing with a stochastic improvement heuristic. In: AAAI, pp. 864–869 (1999)
Lagoudakis, M.G., Markakis, E., Kempe, D., Keskinocak, P., Kleywegt, A.J., Koenig, S., Tovey, C.A., Meyerson, A., Jain, S.: Auction-based multi-robot routing. In: Robotics: Science and Systems, pp. 343–350 (2005)
Mes, M., van der Heijden, M., van Harten, A.: Comparison of agent-based scheduling to look-ahead heuristics for real-time transportation problems. European Journal of Operational Research 181(1), 59–75 (2007)
Nanjanath, M., Gini, M.L.: Dynamic task allocation for robots via auctions. In: ICRA, pp. 2781–2786 (2006)
Nanjanath, M., Gini, M.L.: Repeated auctions for robust task execution by a robot team. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 58(7), 900–909 (2010)
Sandholm, T.: Contract types for satisficing task allocation: I theoretical results. In: Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium: Satisficing Models, pp. 68–75 (1998)
Sariel, S., Balch, T.R.: Efficient bids on task allocation for multi-robot exploration. In: FLAIRS Conference, pp. 116–121 (2006)
Schoenig, A., Pagnucco, M.: Evaluating sequential single-item auctions for dynamic task allocation. In: Li, J. (ed.) AI 2010. LNCS, vol. 6464, pp. 506–515. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Smith, R.G.: The contract net protocol: High-level communication and control in a distributed problem solver. IEEE Trans. Computers 29(12), 1104–1113 (1980)
Solomon, M.M.: Algorithms for the vehicle routing and scheduling problems with time window constraints. Operations Research 35(2), 254–265 (1987)
Tovey, C., Lagoudakis, M., Jain, S., Koenig, S.: The generation of bidding rules for auction-based robot coordination. Multi-Robot Systems III, 3–14 (2005)
Viguria, A., Maza, I., Ollero, A.: Set: An algorithm for distributed multirobot task allocation with dynamic negotiation based on task subsets. In: ICRA, pp. 3339–3344 (2007)
Zhang, K., Collins Jr., E.G., Shi, D.: Centralized and distributed task allocation in multi-robot teams via a stochastic clustering auction. TAASÂ 7(2), 21 (2012)
Zheng, X., Koenig, S.: K-swaps: Cooperative negotiation for solving task-allocation problems. In: IJCAI, pp. 373–379 (2009)
Zlot, R., Stentz, A.: Complex task allocation for multiple robots. In: ICRA, pp. 1515–1522 (2005)
Zlot, R., Stentz, A., Dias, M.B., Thayer, S.: Multi-robot exploration controlled by a market economy. In: ICRA, pp. 3016–3023 (2002)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Heap, B., Pagnucco, M. (2013). Repeated Sequential Single-Cluster Auctions with Dynamic Tasks for Multi-Robot Task Allocation with Pickup and Delivery. In: Klusch, M., Thimm, M., Paprzycki, M. (eds) Multiagent System Technologies. MATES 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8076. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40776-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40776-5_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-40775-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-40776-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)