Emergent Bucket Brigading A simple mechanism for improving performance in multi-robot constrained-space foraging tasks

ABSTRACT This paper is on erned with the multi-robot foraging problem, whi h has been des ribed as one of the anoni al problems for ooperative roboti s. In parti ular, the multi-robot transportation task in onstrained spa e environments is onsidered. We des ribe a simple algorithm whi h produ es bu ket brigade-like behavior, where the robots "hand o " resour es to ea h other, using only lo al sensing. The algorithm is tested in ve experimental onditions, to empiri ally evaluate the strengths/weaknesses of the approa h, and is found to perform signi antly better in onstrained spa e environments than a homogeneous foraging approa h. The key results of the des ribed work are: 1) a framework for foraging tasks in general and 2) a simple me hanism that a ts lo ally to produ e bu ket brigading behavior globally.