Title: Research on task allocation of multi-target search with swarm robots

Authors: Guo-You Zhang; Jian-Chao Zeng; Song-Dong Xue

Addresses: Complex System and Computational Intelligence Laboratory, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China ' Complex System and Computational Intelligence Laboratory, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China ' Complex System and Computational Intelligence Laboratory, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China

Abstract: One of basic problems of multi-target search in swarm robotics is how to allocate the tasks of searching targets among robots. In this paper, the formal description of the problem of multi-target search and task allocation are presented. Inspired by division labour of wasp swarm, the strategy of task allocation of multi-target search based on the response threshold model in swarm robotics is prompted. The states of robots are divided into wander, search and marking target. Robots adopt random search in global search phase and particle swarm algorithm in local search in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the strategy. Simulation results show the method is effective and feasible.

Keywords: swarm robots; task allocation; response threshold; target search; particle swarm optimisation; PSO; multi-target search; wasp swarm; random search; simulation; multi-robot systems; multiple robots; search and rescue; emergency response; disaster response; robot coordination; multiple targets; robot search; robot control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWMC.2014.062039

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing, 2014 Vol.7 No.3, pp.297 - 304

Received: 06 Mar 2014
Accepted: 24 Mar 2014
Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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