Tang, J., Zhu, K., Guo, H., Gong, C., Liao, C., & Zhang, S. (2018).

Simulation Modelling
Practice and Theory Using auction-based task allocation scheme for simulation
optimization of search and rescue in disaster relief. Simulation Modelling Practice and
Theory, 82, 132–146.

In order to improve the efficiency of search and rescue (SAR) in disaster relief, we
optimize the SAR through agent-based simulation in this paper. The Truncated Lévy
walks model is adopted to simulate rescuers’ search behaviors, and we improve it to fit
the disaster environment. An auction-based task allocation scheme is used to develop a
cooperative rescue plan. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, we illustrate
it with the case of landslide disaster relief, and simulate it in three scenarios ("fatal",
"serious" and "normal"). We compare it with non-cooperative rescue plan and the rescue
plan based on well-known F-Max-Sum. The simulation results indicate that the
cooperative rescue plan could improve the rescue efficiency significantly, and it performs
somewhat better than the F-Max-Sum-based approach in regard to some indicators.
Furthermore, its low complexity has made it more appropriate for the cooperation among
rescue teams than F-Max-Sum. The robustness analysis shows that search radius can
affect the rescue efficiency significantly, while the scope of cooperation has little effect
on the rescue efficiency. The sensitivity analysis shows that the two parameters, the time
limit for completing rescue operations in one buried site and the maximum turning angle
for next step, both have great influence on rescue efficiency, and there exist optimal value
for both of them in view of rescue efficiency.

Miki, T., Popovic, M., Gawel, A., Hitz, G., & Siegwart, R. (2018). Multi-agent Time-based
Decision-making for the Search and Action Problem. submission to 2017 International
Conference on Robotics & Automation , 8 pages.

Many robotic applications, such as search-and-rescue, require multiple agents to search

for and perform actions on targets. However, such missions present several challenges,
including cooperative exploration, task selection and allocation, time limitations, and
computational complexity. To address this, we propose a decentralized multi-agent
decision-making framework for the search and action problem with time constraints. The
main idea is to treat time as an allocated budget in a setting where each agent action
incurs a time cost and yields a certain reward. Our approach leverages probabilistic
reasoning to make near-optimal decisions leading to maximized reward. We evaluate our
method in the search, pick, and place scenario of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International
Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), by using a probability density map and reward prediction
function to assess actions. Extensive simulations show that our algorithm outperforms
benchmark strategies, and we demonstrate system integration in a Gazebo-based
environment, validating the framework's readiness for field application.

This work introduced a decentralized multi-agent decision making framework for the search and
action problem in a time-constrained setting. Our algorithm uses probabilistic reasoning to make
decisions leading to highest predicted rewards over a given time limit. The near-optimality of the
output policies is guaranteed by exploiting the properties of the optimization function used for
implicit coordination.Our framework was applied in the MBZIRC search, pick, and place
scenario by specifying a PDM and reward prediction function for action selection. We showed
its advantages over alternative decision-making strategies in terms of mission performance with
varying time limits. Experiments in a 3D environment demonstrated real-time system integration
with examples of informed decision-making.Future research will address adapting our algorithm
to different scenarios, e.g. search-and-rescue. We aim to apply our algorithm for further search-
and-action scenarios where the time cost and reward can be defined for all tasks and exploring
actions. Here, the time limit can reflect a limited resource, e.g., battery level or energy
consumptions. Another interesting avenue for future research is the use of other methods than
bayesian filtering and PDM for the probability calculation of finding new tasks, e.g., for
unknown field size and probability distribution. Possible extensions involve allowing for flight at
variable altitudes, alternative sensor types, and unknown environments/tasks.

Wu, D., Zeng, G., Meng, L., Zhou, W., & Li, L. (2018). Gini Coefficient-based Task
Allocation for Multi-robot Systems With Limited, 5(1), 155–168.
Nowadays, robots generally have a variety of capabilities,which often form a coalition replacing
human to work in dangerous environment, such as rescue, exploration, etc. In these operating
conditions, the energy supply of robots usually cannot be guaranteed. If the energy resources of
some robots are consumed too fast, the number of the future tasks of the coalition will be
affected. This paper will develop a novel task allocation method based on Gini coefficient to
make full use of limited energy resources of multi-robot system to maximize the number of
tasks. At the same time, considering resources consumption, we incorporate the market-based
allocation mechanism into our Gini coefficient-based method and propose a hybrid
method,which can flexibly optimize the task completion number and the resource consumption
according to the application contexts.Experiments show that the multi-robot system with limited
energy resources can accomplish more tasks by the proposed Gini coefficient-based method, and
the hybrid method can bedynamically adaptive to changes of the work environment and realize
the dual optimization goals.

Although task allocation problem of multi-robot has been studied extensively, few literatures
have been provided on the basis of energy resource constraint of robot. And in practical
multi-robot systems, the number of tasks completed is crucial to system performance in some
applications such as search and rescue, exploration, and site clearing. Inspired by the idea of
“reducing internal resources distribution difference among robots”, we investigate the task
allocation problemwith resource constraint in the multi-robot systems using Gini coefficient. We
find that task allocation based on Gini coefficient can effectively improve the number of tasks
completed by robots system. On the other hand, we also find that it is better to make a
compromise between the number of taskscompleted and resource consumed when resource cost
has tobe considered. Therefore, we focus on “minimizing resource consumed” and “maximizing
the number of tasks completed”as two optimization objectives in the task allocation of
multirobot systems, and propose the market-Gini coefficient-based method. Our market-Gini
coefficient-based method allows arobot coalition to select the optimal value of G according to
the importance of the two optimization objectives, so the method can be flexibly adapted and
easily implemented invarious application contexts. In the paper, we demonstrated the superiority
of our proposed methods over the market-based approach using simulation experiments.

1. Douchan, Y., & Kaminka, G. A. (2018). Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (Vol.
6). Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73008-0

Banfi, J., Quattrini, A., Ioannis, L., Francesco, R., & Basilico, N. (2018). Strategies for coordinated
multirobot exploration with recurrent connectivity constraints. Autonomous Robots, 42(4), 875–894.

During several applications, such as search and rescue, robots must discover new information
about the environment and, at the same time, share operational knowledge with a base station
through an ad hoc network. In this paper, we design exploration strategies that allow robots to
coordinate with teammates to form such a network in order to satisfy recurrent connectivity
constraints—that is, data must be shared with the base station when making new observations at
the assigned locations. Current approaches lack in flexibility due to the assumptions made about
the communication model. Furthermore, they are sometimes inefficient because of the
synchronous way they work: new plans are issued only once all robots have reached their goals.
This paper introduces two novel asynchronous strategies that work with arbitrary
communication models. In this paper ‘asynchronous’ means that it is possible to issue new plans
to subgroups of robots, when they are ready to receive them. First, we propose a single-stage
strategy based on Integer Linear Programming for selecting and assigning robots to locations.
Second, we design a two-stage strategy to improve computational efficiency, by separating the
problem of locations’ selection from that of robot-location assignments. Extensive testing both in
simulation and with real robots show that the proposed strategies provide good situation
awareness at the base station while efficiently exploring the environment.

Recurrent connectivity is a way for introducing communication constraints in multirobot

exploration missions by requiring that robots must communicate with a base station whenever
they reach goal locations from which new knowledge can be acquired. In this work, we defined
and extensively evaluated two planning techniques for efficient exploration under recurrent
connectivity constraints. First, we proposed a single-stage strategy based on an ILP whose
objective function accounts for both exploration costs and information gains. Then, we defined a
two-stage strategy, separating the problem of locations selection from that of the robot-location
assignments. The experimental analysis showed that the proposed methods can be effectively
applied to multi robot exploration missions, because they provide performance comparable with
that of a state-of-the-art method that leaves more freedom to explore. Future work will improve
the selection of the locations for the graph (for example, in an indoor environment, it would be
possible to use the Generalized Voronoi Graph (Zhang et al. 2014)), and fast detection of
frontiers, building on the work of (Keidar and Kaminka 2014). Furthermore, our method could
be extended to allocations that consider shared resources such as space (Nam and Shell 2015).
Currently, we are also investigating the possibility of adopting a more speculative link-detection
mechanism to build the set of communication edges, like resorting to a dedicated sub team of
robots to build a “communication map“ by means of an online learning method such as Gaussian
Processes (Banfi et al. 2017), which are particularly suitable for learning spatial phenomena.
Finally, this development would also entail the need for backup plans to be used in the presence
of false positives in predicted links.
Lee, D., & Lee, D. (2018). Resource-based Task Allocation for Multi-Robot Systems. Robotics and
Autonomous Systems. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2018.02.016 .
This paper proposes a resource-based task allocation algorithm for multi-robot systems.During
mission operations, robots continuously consume their resources which must be refilled during
their operations. Unlike other existing auction-based algorithms in which robots do not account
for their resources in task allocations, the proposed algorithm considers the resources of the
robots to generate their costs. In this algorithm, robots calculate the task performance estimation
considering all the possibilities of visiting different combinations of refill stations based on their
resource levels. This enables the robots to reduce unnecessary wastage of time and resources
during the mission. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with respect to task completion
time, resource consumption, and communication overhead is theoretically analyzed and is also
demonstrated from the simulation of the delivery mission.

This paper presented a resource-based task allocation algorithm for multirobot coordination.
The effect of the robot resources in the auction-based approach was considered, and the proposed
approach was shown to be able to minimize both the task completion time as well as the resource
consumption. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm was demonstrated by the simulation
of the delivery mission, and the results showed that the proposed algorithm minimizes the task
completion time, requires less communication among robots, and results in the efficient
consumption of the robots’ resources.

Best, G., Faigl, J., & Fitch, R. (2018). Online planning for multi-robot active perception with self-
organising maps. Autonomous Robots, 42(4), 715–738. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-017-9691-4

We propose a self-organising map (SOM) algorithm as a solution to a new multi-goal path

planning problem for activeperception and data collection tasks. We optimise paths for a multi-
robot team that aims to maximally observe a set of nodes in the environment. The selected nodes
are observed by visiting associated viewpoint regions defined by a sensor model. The key
problem characteristics are that the viewpoint regions are overlapping polygonal continuous
regions, each node has an observation reward, and the robots are constrained by travel budgets.
The SOMalgorithm jointly selects and allocates nodes to the robots and finds favourable
sequences of sensing locations. The algorithm has a runtime complexity that is polynomial in the
number of nodes to be observed and the magnitude of the relative weighting of rewards.We show
empirically the runtime is sublinear in the number of robots.We demonstrate feasibility for the
active perception task of observing a set of 3D objects. The viewpoint regions consider sensing
ranges and self-occlusions, and the rewards are measured as discriminability in the ensemble of
shape functions feature space. Exploration objectives for online tasks where the environment is
only partially known in advance are modelled by introducing goal regions in unexplored space.
Online replanning is performed efficiently by adapting previous solutions as new information
becomes available. Simulations were performed using a 3D point-cloud dataset from a real robot
in a large outdoor environment. Our results show the proposed methods enable multi-robot
planning for online active perception tasks with continuous sets of candidate viewpoints and long
planning horizons.

We have proposed a newformulation and approach formultirobot active perception problems.

The objectives are defined as a set of continuous viewpoint regions, and the robots coordinate to
maximise coverage of these regions. Selforganising maps is a fitting choice for developing
solution algorithms; they can select favourable observation locations within continuous regions,
while simultaneously optimising the full paths of the robots. Optimising the full paths, i.e.,
planning over a long time horizon, results in significant performance improvements over greedy
and short-horizon planning. Our new SOM formulation addresses scenarios with non-uniform
observation rewards, budget constraints, polygonal observation regions and multiple robots. The
algorithm has polynomial time-complexity, converges towards a final solution, and is anytime.
Additionally, we demonstrated that the formulation is suitable for online scenarios where the
objectives change over time and the planner needs to efficiently adapt the plans to meet the new
requirements. We also showed how the planner can be used to balance between exploring the
environment to obtain new information and making high-quality observations of known objects.
Our implementation achieved reasonable clock time performance of milliseconds to seconds.
Overall, our results show that the proposed method enables multi-robot planning for budgeted
active perception tasks with continuous sets of candidate viewpoints and multi-step planning
horizons.

Mahmoud Zadeh, S., Powers, D. M. W., Sammut, K., & Yazdani, A. M. (2018). A novel versatile
architecture for autonomous underwater vehicle’s motion planning and task assignment.Soft
Computing, 22(5), 1687–1710. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-016-2433-2
Expansion of today’s underwater scenarios and missions necessitates the requisition for robust
decision making of the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV); hence, design an efficient
decision-making framework is essential for maximizing the mission productivity in a restricted
time. This paper focuses on developing a deliberative conflict-free task assignment architecture
encompassing a global route planner (GRP) and a local path planner (LPP) to provide consistent
motion planning encountering both environmental dynamic changes and a priori knowledge of
the terrain, so that theAUVis reactively guided to the target of interest in the context of an
uncertain underwater environment. The architecture involves three main modules: The GRP
module at the top level dealswith the task priority assignment,mission time management, and
determination of a feasible route between start and destination point in a large-scale
environment. The LPP module at the lower level deals with safety considerations and generates
collision-free optimal trajectory between each specific pair ofwaypoints listed in obtained global
route. Re-planning module tends to promote robustness and reactive ability of the AUV with
respect to the environmental changes. The experimental results for different simulated missions
demonstrate the inherent robustness and drastic efficiency of the proposed scheme in
enhancement of the vehicles autonomy in terms of mission productivity, mission time
management, and vehicle safety.

Caron, Q. B. A., & Routier, M. M. J. (2018). Fair multi-agent task allocation for large datasets analysis.
Knowledge and Information Systems, 54(3), 591–615. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-017-1087-4
MapReduce is a design pattern for processing large datasets distributed on a cluster. Its
performances are linked to the data structure and the runtime environment. Indeed, data skew can
yield an unfair task allocation, but even when the initial allocation produced by the partition
function is well balanced, an unfair allocation can occur during the reduce phase due to the
heterogeneous performance of nodes. For these reasons, we propose an adaptive multi-agent
system. In our approach, the reducer agents interact during the job and the task reallocation is
based on negotiation in order to decrease the workload of the most loaded reducer and so the
runtime. In this paper, we propose and evaluate two negotiation strategies. Finally, we
experiment our multi-agent system with real-world datasets over heterogeneous runtime
environment.

1. Schillinger, P., Bürger, M., & Dimarogonas, D. V. (2018). Distributed Autonomous

Robotic Systems (Vol. 6). Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-
319-73008-0

2. Nam, C., & Shell, D. A. (2018). Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (Vol. 6).
Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73008-0

Schneider, E., Sklar, E. I., & Parsons, S. (2017). Mechanism selection for multi-robot task allocation.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and
Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 10454 LNAI, 421–435. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64107-2_33

The work presented here investigates how environmental features can be used to help select a
task allocation mechanism from a portfolio in a multi-robot exploration scenario. In particular,
we look at clusters of task locations and the positions of team members in relation to cluster
centres. In a data-driven approach, we conduct experiments that use two di_erent task allocation
mechanisms on the same set of scenarios, providing comparative performance data. We then
train a classifer on this data, giving us a method for choosing the best mechanism for a given
scenario. We show that selecting a mechanism via this method, compared to using a single state-
of-the-art mechanism only, can improve team performance in certain environments, according to
our metrics.
Valero, Ó., & Oliver, G. (2017). Toward a Possibilistic Swarm Multi-robot Task Allocation : Theoretical
and Experimental Results. Neural Processing Letters, 46(3), 881–897. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11063-
017-9647-x
Selecting the best task to execute (task allocation problem) is one of the main problems in multi-
robot systems. Typical ways to address this problem are based on swarm intelligence and very
especially using the so-called response threshold method. In the aforementioned method a robot
has a certain probability of executing a task which depends on a task threshold response and a
task stimulus. Nevertheless, response threshold method cannot be extended in a natural way to
allocate more than two tasks when the theoretical basis is provided by probability theory.
Motivated by this fact, this paper leaves the probabilistic approach to the problem and provides a
first theoretical framework towards a possibilistic approach. Thus, task allocation problem is
addressed using fuzzy Markov chains instead of probabilistic processes. This paper demonstrates
that fuzzy Markov chains associated to a task allocation problem can converge to a stationary
stage in a finite number of steps. In contrast, the probabilistic processes only can converge
asymptotically, i.e. the number of steps is not bounded in general. Moreover, fuzzy Markov
chains predicts in a better way the future behavior of the system in the presence of vagueness
when measuring distances. The simulations performed confirm the theoretical results and show
how the number of steps needed to get a stable state with fuzzy Markov chains is reduced more
than 10 times and the system’s behavior prediction can be improved more than a 60% compared
to probabilistic approaches.

This paper has taken a new step to develop the theoretical basis for possibility multi-robot task
allocation methods based on swarm intelligence. One of the most important swarm MRTA
method is the response threshold. As mentioned in this paper, RT methods have a few
inconveniences, from practical and theoretical point of view. In fact, if there are more than 2
states then easily either to determine the transitions probabilities is a hard task and, therefore,
they have to be fitted subjectively, or the distribution of transitions is not probabilistic and must
be normalized. These handicaps can be avoided using possibilistic Markov chains which clearly
offers a more realistic and general approach because allow to model imprecise probabilities. The
paper proves that, in the specific case where the transition possibility depends on a distance, the
Markov process converges in a finite number of steps that are lower or equal to the number of
tasks. Moreover, the robustness of the fuzzy Markov chains allows to give better predictions
about the future evolution of the system whenever there is vagueness in he measurement of the
distances. The experimental results confirm all the theoretical results and show that, in real
scenarios, the possibilistic approach reduce 10 times the number of steps needed to reach an
stable state and improve more than 60% the predictions of the system behavior compared to
probabilsitic Markov chains. In the light of all these results, we can conclude that the
possibilistic approach proposed in this paper is a promising candidate to design better swarm task
allocation algorithms and to make estimations about the decision to make during the execution
time. Due to its low execution time, fuzzy Markov chains could be used in a future as a very
good candidate to provide on-line feedback values for learning algorithms. This work still has a
lot of challenging aspects to add and to improve. For the time being, we focus on analyzing the
behavior of the possibilistic approach using tasks with deadlines. Dynamical environments,
where the tasks arrives or disappear along the execution time are also under consideration.
Furthermore, the results of the matrix composition could be used as feedback for on-line learning
algorithms. Finally, the implementation of possibilistic approaches on real robots is also a future
work.

Caraballo, L. E., Díaz-báñez, J. M., Maza, I., & Ollero, A. (2017). The block-information-
sharing strategy for task allocation : A case study for structure assembly with aerial robots
R. European Journal of Operational Research, 260(2), 725–738.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.12.049
A new paradigm for task allocation in cooperative multi-robot systems is proposed in this paper.
The block-information-sharing (BIS) strategy is a fully distributed approach, where robots
dynamically allo- cate their tasks following the principle of share & divide to maintain an
optimal allocation according to their capabilities. Prior studies on multi-robot information
sharing strategies do not formally address the proof of convergence to the optimal allocation, nor
its robustness to dynamic changes in the execution of the global task. The BIS strategy is
introduced in a general framework and the convergence to the optimal allocation is theoretically
proved. As an illustration of the approach, the strategy is applied to the automatic construction of
truss structures with aerial robots. In order to demonstrate the benefits of the strategy, algorithms
and simulations are presented for a team of heterogeneous robots that can dynamically reallocate
tasks during the execution of a mission.

In this paper we have introduced the block-information-sharing strategy as a new paradigm for
performing task allocation in a de- centralized manner. This strategy is applicable to a variety of
sce- narios meeting the following conditions: the general task should be divisible and
parallelizable, the communication graph should be connected and the union of the selected
block-configurations should be a covering of the set of edges of the communication graph. It has
been proved that if these conditions are fulfilled, the convergence to an optimal task allocation
can be guaranteed. Thus, the experimental proofs on the convergence in related literature (
Acevedo et al., 2013a; Acevedo et al., 2013b; Acevedo et al., 2014; Caraballo et al., 2014 ) are
now theoretically endorsed. It has also been demonstrated that the block size is an impor- tant
parameter in this strategy which is directly related to the rate of convergence and robustness. In
an ideal scenario with instan- taneous communication and no limit in the information amount to
be handled by one robot, the convergence rate increases with increasing block size. However, in
real applications, sharing with blocks of big size may be expensive and the system can lose in
efficiency and fault tolerance. In fact, the memory of the robots is limited and time is spent while
moving to ensure the informa- tion sharing process. Thus, although the benefits of the BIS
strategy are visible in the computational experiments in both, surveillance tasks ( Caraballo et al.,
2014 ) and assembling structures, the block size is a parameter that can be adequately set based
on prior stud- ies and simulations for a given scenario. Indeed, the lack of a priori knowledge of
the block size for a specific communication graph is the bottleneck of the BIS paradigm. In this
work, the block size is considered an input parameter, whereas the computation of an op- timal
value for a given configuration remains an open problem.

Zhu, D., Liu, Y., & Sun, B. (2017). Task Assignment and Path Planning of a Multi-AUV System Based on
a Glasius Bio-Inspired Self-Organising Map Algorithm. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0373463317000728

For multi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (multi-AUV) system task assignment and path
planning, a novel Glasius Bio-inspired Self-Organising Map (GBSOM) neural networks
algorithm is proposed to solve relevant problems in a Three-Dimensional (3D) grid map. Firstly,
a 3D Glasius Bio-inspired Neural Network (GBNN) model is established to represent the 3D
underwater working environment. Using this model, the strength of neural activity is calculated
at each node within the GBNN. Secondly, a Self-Organising Map (SOM) neural network is used
to assign the targets to a set of AUVs and determine the order of the AUVs to access the target
point. Finally, according to the magnitude of the neuron activity in the GBNN, the next AUV
target point can be autonomously planned when the task assignment is completed. By repeating
the above three steps, access to all target points is completed. Simulation and comparison studies
are presented to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can overcome the speed jump problem
of SOM algorithms and path planning in the 3D underwater environments with static or dynamic
obstacles.

A GBSOM algorithm is proposed to complete AUV task assignment and path planning in 3D
static and dynamic environments in this paper. The algorithm can overcome the problem of
speed jumps and offers obstacle avoidance capabilities missing from traditional SOM algorithms.
Simulation results show that the GBSOM algorithm proposed in this paper can not only achieve
the task assignment in a 3D underwater environment, but can also avoid static or dynamic
obstacles and resolve the speed jump problem. In this paper, the task assignment and path
planning are considered under ideal conditions with no ocean current. Ocean currents will be
added in the next step of research.
Nunes, E., Manner, M., Mitiche, H., & Gini, M. (2017). A taxonomy for task allocation
problems with temporal and ordering constraints. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 90,
55–70. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2016.10.008

Previous work on assigning tasks to robots has proposed extensive categorizations of allocation
of tasks with and without constraints. The main contribution of this paper is a specific
categorization of problems that have temporal and ordering constraints.Wepropose a novel
taxonomy that emphasizes the differences between temporal and ordering constraints, and
organizes the current literature according to the nature of those constraints. We summarize
widely used models and methods from the task allocation literature and related areas, such as
vehicle routing and scheduling problems, showing similarities and differences.

Zhou, J., Mu, D., Yang, F., Dai, G., & Shell, D. A. (2017). A distributed approach to load balance for
multi- robot task allocation A distributed approach to load balance for multi-robot task allocation,
(July). http://doi.org/10.1109/ICMA.2014.6885767

In this paper we develop a distributed scheme for multiple robots engaged in task allocation.
Vision-based control is extensively used in robotics, however large data volume may delay the
response of robots and lead to the mismatch of actuators and sensors. We build a cascade
information retrieval model and the signal vector based sensing delivery mapping to maintain a
tight coupling between sensing and acting. And we propose a novel mathematical model which
overcomes the problem of the existing model which has no extendibility for multi-robot task
allocation. The new Markov model is composed of a set of rate equations and uses the theory of
eigen-values in order to augment the number of task types and get the analytical solution of the
model. In the physical experiments the results verify that the multi-robot system can split itself
according to the proportions of various tasks in the environment, and show the effectiveness of
distributed method for desired load balance.

In this paper, we present a distributed control system for MRTA. Robots in the MRS have no
prior knowledge of the tasks in the environment, individuals’ state transitions are determined by
noisy local sensor information, and the global level task allocation arises from local-level
individuals’ state transitions. We propose an alternative mathematical model to get the analytical
solution for the probability vector P(t), which describes the fractions of robots in various states
as well as the result of MRTA — the fractions of tasks done by the MRS. Our method can
augment the task types conveniently to make extension on the application scope of
computational methods in [14] and we provide an example about four types of task to prove this
point. In experiments the results show the correctness and effectiveness of distributed control
method for desired load balance.

Mouradian, C., Sahoo, J., Glitho, R. H., Morrow, M. J., & Polakos, P. A. (2017). A
Coalition Formation Algorithm for Multi-Robot Task Allocation in Large-Scale Natural
Disasters.
In large-scale natural disasters, humans are likely to fail when they attempt to reach
high-risk sites or act in search and rescue operations. Robots, however, outdo their
counterparts in surviving the hazards and handling the search and rescue missions due to
their multiple and diverse sensing and actuation capabilities. The dynamic formation of
optimal coalition of these heterogeneous robots for cost efficiency is very challenging
 and research in the area is gaining more and more attention. In this paper, we propose a
novel heuristic. Since the population of robots in large-scale disaster settings is very
large, we rely on Quantum Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (QMOPSO).
The problem is modeled as a multi-objective optimization problem. Simulations with
different test cases and metrics, and comparison with other algorithms such as NSGA-II
and SPEA-II are carried out. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm
outperforms the existing algorithms not only in terms of convergence but also in terms of
diversity and processing time.

In this paper, we have proposed a coalition formation algorithm for multi-robot systems.
To show the effectiveness of our algorithm, we have conducted extensive simulation
experiments and compared our algorithm with other existing algorithms. The results
demonstrate that the proposed algorithm cannot only improve the solution, but it also has
a significantly short processing time. They also show that the filtering and the repository
updating mechanisms do not add overhead on the processing time. It is also observed that
QMOPSO achieves higher diversity, the lowest error rate, and produces better solution
compared to NSGA-II and SPEA-II for large problem sizes.

Liu, Y., & Bucknall, R. (2017). Efficient multi-task allocation and path planning for
unmanned surface vehicle in support of ocean operations, 0, 1–17.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2017.09.088

Presently, there is an increasing interest in the deployment of unmanned surface vehicles

(USVs) to sup- port complex ocean operations. In order to carry out these missions in a
more efficient way, an intelligent hybrid multi-task allocation and path planning
algorithm is required and has been proposed in this pa- per. In terms of the multi-task
allocation, a novel algorithm based upon a self-organising map (SOM) has been designed
and developed. The main contribution is that an adaptive artificial repulsive force field
has been constructed and integrated into the SOM to achieve collision avoidance
capability. The new al- gorithm is able to fast and effectively generate a sequence for
executing multiple tasks in a cluttered maritime environment involving numerous
obstacles. After generating an optimised task execution se- quence, a path planning
algorithm based upon fast marching square (FMS) is utilised to calculate the trajectories.
Because of the introduction of a safety parameter, the FMS is able to adaptively adjust
the dimensional influence of an obstacle and accordingly generate the paths to ensure the
safety of the USV. The algorithms have been verified and evaluated through a number of
computer based simulations and has been proven to work effectively in both simulated
and practical maritime environments.
Arif, M. U., & Haider, S. (2017). An Evolutionary Traveling Salesman Approach for Multi-
Robot Task Allocation Overview of MRTA, (Icaart), 567–574.
http://doi.org/10.5220/0006197305670574

Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) addresses the problems related to an efficient job
assignment in a team of robots. This paper expresses MRTA as a generalization of the Multiple
Traveling Salesman Problem (MTSP) and utilizes evolutionary algorithms (EA) for optimal task
assignment. The MTSP version of the problem is also solved using combinatorial optimization
techniques and results are compared to demonstrate that EA can be effectively used for providing
solutions to such problems.

The paper used MTSP based chromosome representation to solve MRTA using EA. The results
were compared with exact mathematical solutions obtained through CPLEX. EA provided an
optimal solution in each and every case and did it in an acceptable number of generations.
However, the advantage EA has over combinatorial optimization based techniques is that for
dynamic environments, such as a robot team executing tasks in real life scenarios, the problem
will not need remodeling if minor changes occur in the structure of the problem. Moreover, EA
provide the flexibility of restartingthe optimization from the last solution in case the last solution
becomes invalid due to some structural changes in the problem. The future work will focus on
using this same MTSP representation for solving more complex MRTA distributions. This will
allow taking advantage of EA for adjusting to changes made in problem representation more
flexibly as compared to exact mathematical solutions.