Parametric investigation of a distributed strategy for multiple agents systems applied to cooperative tasks

Abstract

Distributed coordination strategy based on modified version of the artificial ant system directs mobile robots to unexplored regions and regions that were not recently explored for accomplishing cooperative tasks as exploration and surveillance. Previously, application of the strategy confirmed that exploration and surveillance general behaviors emerge from the individual agent behavior. The strategy is able to adapt the current system dynamics if the number of robots or the environment structure or both change. In this paper, parametric variation of strategy is executed according to pheromone evaporation and releasing phenomena. Experiment results demonstrate that different configurations of phenomenon affect exploration and surveillance behaviors. Different compiled data sets are considered to assess the strategies, namely: needed time to conclude the task; and time between two consecutive sensory on a specific region. The results show that there is a set of configuration of the phenomena to become the strategy more effi cient to execute the exploration and surveillance tasks.