Market-based distributed task assignment for rendezvous mission over networks with limited connectivity

Abstract

This paper extends the market-based task assignment algorithm to handle the networks with limited connectivity. The original algorithm was proposed to allocate tasks which cannot be executed by a single agent, but fully connected network is assumed. After analyzing the existing approaches for task allocation in limited networks, a new communications protocol is proposed which preserve key features of the original algorithm. The data required for task allocation algorithm is relayed via bridge agents. By adopting relaying operation, the proposed strategy allocates tasks regardless of the network topology. Convergence property is also preserved. Numerical simulation is performed to verify the feasibility of the proposed strategy considering the communication load.