Task allocation is a key issue of agent cooperation mechanism in Multi-Agent Systems. The important features of an agent system such as the latency of the network infrastructure, dynamic topology, and node heterogenei...Task allocation is a key issue of agent cooperation mechanism in Multi-Agent Systems. The important features of an agent system such as the latency of the network infrastructure, dynamic topology, and node heterogeneity impose new challenges on the task allocation in Multi-Agent environments. Based on the traditional parallel computing task allocation method and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), a novel task allocation method named Collection Path Ant Colony Optimization (CPACO) is proposed to achieve global optimization and reduce processing time. The existing problems of ACO are analyzed; CPACO overcomes such problems by modifying the heuristic function and the update strategy in the Ant-Cycle Model and establishing a threedimensional path pheromone storage space. The experimental results show that CPACO consumed only 10.3% of the time taken by the Global Search Algorithm and exhibited better performance than the Forward Optimal Heuristic Algorithm.展开更多
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.61170117Major National Science and Technology Programs under Grant No.2010ZX07102006+3 种基金National Key Technology R&D Program under Grant No.2012BAH25B02the National 973 Program of China under Grant No.2011CB505402the Guangdong Province University-Industry Cooperation under Grant No.2011A090200008the Scientific Research Foundation, Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry
文摘Task allocation is a key issue of agent cooperation mechanism in Multi-Agent Systems. The important features of an agent system such as the latency of the network infrastructure, dynamic topology, and node heterogeneity impose new challenges on the task allocation in Multi-Agent environments. Based on the traditional parallel computing task allocation method and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), a novel task allocation method named Collection Path Ant Colony Optimization (CPACO) is proposed to achieve global optimization and reduce processing time. The existing problems of ACO are analyzed; CPACO overcomes such problems by modifying the heuristic function and the update strategy in the Ant-Cycle Model and establishing a threedimensional path pheromone storage space. The experimental results show that CPACO consumed only 10.3% of the time taken by the Global Search Algorithm and exhibited better performance than the Forward Optimal Heuristic Algorithm.