A contract-net model for foraging agents in dynamic environment

Abstract

In this paper we are interested to multi-agent foraging, where a team of agents search environment until they find some interested objects and return to nest. Apart from existing models for foraging, we consider a multi-agent system that the agents are restricted with fuel consumption. Additionally, interested objects in environments are in motion all the time. Then, the foraging problem is constrained with complex conditions of agents’ and the environment’s requirements. A Contract-Net model is proposed to solve this foraging considering all the constraints related with fuel consumption as well as dynamic environment conditions. Contract-Net is a well-known negotiation protocol where each agent (or node in the agents net) can be in role of a manager or contractor. Efficiency of the proposed model is investigated by some simulation experiments.