University of Tasmania
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Dynamic task allocation for heterogeneous agents in disaster environments under time, space and communication constraints

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 17:23 authored by Su, X, Zhang, M, Quan BaiQuan Bai
Task allocation for heterogeneous agents in disaster environments under time, space and communication constraints is a challenging issue in both theory and practice. This paper presents a dynamic task allocation approach for such situations. The proposed approach consists of an information collection mechanism, a group task allocation mechanism and a group coordination mechanism. Initially, the information collection mechanism is applied to help agents in communication networks to reduce their communication connections and select one agent in each network as the network leader in a decentralized manner so as to facilitate the collection of information for task allocation under communication constraints. Then, the group task allocation mechanism is employed by each network leader to allocate tasks and agents in its network to groups with suitable space ranges by considering time, space and communication constraints as well as the differing capabilities of agents. During task execution, due to the dynamics of disaster environments, the original allocation (by the group task allocation mechanism) of tasks and agents in groups may be unsuitable. To achieve continuous coordination of the heterogeneous agents among groups under communication constraints, the group coordination mechanism is employed. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can have better performance than many existing approaches in terms of information collection and dynamic task allocation in disaster environments under time, space and communication constraints.

History

Publication title

Computer Journal

Volume

58

Issue

8

Pagination

1776-1791

ISSN

0010-4620

Department/School

School of Information and Communication Technology

Publisher

Oxford Univ Press

Place of publication

Great Clarendon St, Oxford, England, Ox2 6Dp

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Application software packages

Usage metrics

    University Of Tasmania

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC