Seenu N., Kuppan Chetty R.M., Ramya M.M. and Mukund Nilakantan Janardhanan
This paper aims to present a concise review on the variant state-of-the-art dynamic task allocation strategies. It presents a thorough discussion about the existing dynamic task…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a concise review on the variant state-of-the-art dynamic task allocation strategies. It presents a thorough discussion about the existing dynamic task allocation strategies mainly with respect to the problem application, constraints, objective functions and uncertainty handling methods.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper briefs the introduction of multi-robot dynamic task allocation problem and discloses the challenges that exist in real-world dynamic task allocation problems. Numerous task allocation strategies are discussed in this paper, and it establishes the characteristics features between them in a qualitative manner. This paper also exhibits the existing research gaps and conducive future research directions in dynamic task allocation for multiple mobile robot systems.
Findings
This paper concerns the objective functions, robustness, task allocation time, completion time, and task reallocation feature for performance analysis of different task allocation strategies. It prescribes suitable real-world applications for variant task allocation strategies and identifies the challenges to be resolved in multi-robot task allocation strategies.
Originality/value
This paper provides a comprehensive review of dynamic task allocation strategies and incites the salient research directions to the researchers in multi-robot dynamic task allocation problems. This paper aims to summarize the latest approaches in the application of exploration problems.
Details
Keywords
Elias Xidias and Paraskevi Zacharia
A fleet of mobile robots has been effectively used in various application domains such as industrial plant inspection. This paper proposes a solution to the combined problem of…
Abstract
Purpose
A fleet of mobile robots has been effectively used in various application domains such as industrial plant inspection. This paper proposes a solution to the combined problem of task allocation and motion planning problem for a fleet of mobile robots which are requested to operate in an intelligent industry. More specifically, the robots are requested to serve a set of inspection points within given service time windows. In comparison with the conventional time windows, our problem considers fuzzy time windows to express the decision maker’s satisfaction for visiting an inspection point.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a unified approach to the combined problem of task allocation and motion planning for a fleet of mobile robots with three objectives: (a) minimizing the total travel cost considering all robots and tasks, (b) balancing fairly the workloads among robots and (c) maximizing the satisfaction grade of the decision maker for receiving the services. The optimization problem is solved by using a novel combination of a Genetic Algorithm with pareto solutions and fuzzy set theory.
Findings
The computational results illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach. The experimental analysis leverages the potential for using fuzzy time windows to reflect real situations and respond to demanding situations.
Originality/value
This paper provides trade-off solutions to a realistic combinatorial multi-objective optimization problem considering concurrently the motion and path planning problem for a fleet of mobile robots with fuzzy time windows.