A Practical Application of Market-Based Mechanisms for Allocating Harvesting Tasks

Market-based task allocation mechanisms are designed to distribute a set of tasks fairly amongst agents. Such have been shown be highly effective in simulation and when applied multi-robot teams. Application such real-world settings can present range practical challenges, as knowing what is the best point complex process allocate information consider determining allocation. The work presented here explores application market-based problem managing heterogeneous human workforce undertake activities associated with harvesting soft fruit. Soft fruit farms aim maximise yield (the volume picked) while minimising labour time (and thus cost picking). Our evaluates experimentally several different strategies for allocating workers on farms, identifying methods that appear simulated using multi-agent model farm activity.