On the use of fuzzy preorders and asymmetric distances for multi-robot communication

Abstract

One of the main problems to be addressed in a multi-robot system is the selection of the best robot, or group of them, to carry out a specific task. Among the large number of solutions provided to allocate tasks to a group of robots, this work focuses on swarm-like approaches, and more specifically on response-threshold algorithms, where each robot selects the next task to perform by following a Markov process. To the best of our knowledge, the current response-threshold algorithms do not provide any formal method to generate new transition functions between tasks. Thus, this paper provides, for the first time, a mathematical model, as based on the so-called fuzzy preorders, for the allocation of tasks to a collective of robots with communication capabilities. In our previous work, we proved that transitions in the aforementioned process can be modeled as fuzzy preorders, constructed through the aggregation of asymmetric distances, in such a way that each robot makes its decision without taking into account the decisions of its teammates. Now, we extend this model in such a way that each robot will take into account the number of robots previously allocated for each task. To implement this method, a very simple communication mechanism has been considered. Several simulations have been carried out in order to validate our approach. The results confirm that fuzzy preorders are able to model the evolution of the system when this type of communication is considered and show when and how the communication process improves the system's performance. Experimental results show the existence of a set of good values for the maximum communication distance between robots and that these values depend on the distribution of the tasks in the environment. Thus, in some cases, a better communication mechanism does not imply better results.

Keywords

• multi-robot communication
• fuzzy preorders
• asymmetric distances
• task allocation
• possibility theory
• aggregation