A task allocation problem for the heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm in unknown environments is studied in this paper.Considering that the actual mission environment information may be unknown,the UAV s...A task allocation problem for the heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm in unknown environments is studied in this paper.Considering that the actual mission environment information may be unknown,the UAV swarm needs to detect the environment first and then attack the detected targets.The heterogeneity of UAVs,multiple types of tasks,and the dynamic nature of task environment lead to uneven load and time sequence problems.This paper proposes an improved contract net protocol (CNP) based task allocation scheme,which effectively balances the load of UAVs and improves the task efficiency.Firstly,two types of task models are established,including regional reconnaissance tasks and target attack tasks.Secondly,for regional reconnaissance tasks,an improved CNP algorithm using the uncertain contract is developed.Through uncertain contracts,the area size of the regional reconnaissance task is determined adaptively after this task assignment,which can improve reconnaissance efficiency and resource utilization.Thirdly,for target attack tasks,an improved CNP algorithm using the fuzzy integrated evaluation and the double-layer negotiation is presented to enhance collaborative attack efficiency through adjusting the assignment sequence adaptively and multi-layer allocation.Finally,the effectiveness and advantages of the improved method are verified through comparison simulations.展开更多
The application of multiple UAVs in complicated tasks has been widely explored in recent years.Due to the advantages of flexibility,cheapness and consistence,the performance of heterogeneous multi-UAVs with proper coo...The application of multiple UAVs in complicated tasks has been widely explored in recent years.Due to the advantages of flexibility,cheapness and consistence,the performance of heterogeneous multi-UAVs with proper cooperative task allocation is superior to over the single UAV.Accordingly,several constraints should be satisfied to realize the efficient cooperation,such as special time-window,variant equipment,specified execution sequence.Hence,a proper task allocation in UAVs is the crucial point for the final success.The task allocation problem of the heterogeneous UAVs can be formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem coupled with the UAV dynamics.To this end,a multi-layer encoding strategy and a constraint scheduling method are designed to handle the critical logical and physical constraints.In addition,four optimization objectives:completion time,target reward,UAV damage,and total range,are introduced to evaluate various allocation plans.Subsequently,to efficiently solve the multi-objective optimization problem,an improved multi-objective quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization(IMOQPSO)algorithm is proposed.During this algorithm,a modified solution evaluation method is designed to guide algorithmic evolution;both the convergence and distribution of particles are considered comprehensively;and boundary solutions which may produce some special allocation plans are preserved.Moreover,adaptive parameter control and mixed update mechanism are also introduced in this algorithm.Finally,both the proposed model and algorithm are verified by simulation experiments.展开更多
It is difficult for the double suppression division algorithm of bee colony to solve the spatio-temporal coupling or have higher dimensional attributes and undertake sudden tasks.Using the idea of clustering,after clu...It is difficult for the double suppression division algorithm of bee colony to solve the spatio-temporal coupling or have higher dimensional attributes and undertake sudden tasks.Using the idea of clustering,after clustering tasks according to spatio-temporal attributes,the clustered groups are linked into task sub-chains according to similarity.Then,based on the correlation between clusters,the child chains are connected to form a task chain.Therefore,the limitation is solved that the task chain in the bee colony algorithm can only be connected according to one dimension.When a sudden task occurs,a method of inserting a small number of tasks into the original task chain and a task chain reconstruction method are designed according to the relative relationship between the number of sudden tasks and the number of remaining tasks.Through the above improvements,the algorithm can be used to process tasks with spatio-temporal coupling and burst tasks.In order to reflect the efficiency and applicability of the algorithm,a task allocation model for the unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)group is constructed,and a one-to-one correspondence between the improved bee colony double suppression division algorithm and each attribute in the UAV group is proposed.Task assignment has been constructed.The study uses the self-adjusting characteristics of the bee colony to achieve task allocation.Simulation verification and algorithm comparison show that the algorithm has stronger planning advantages and algorithm performance.展开更多
The problem of allocating a number of exploration tasks to a team of mobile robots in dynamic environments was studied. The team mission is to visit several distributed targets. The path cost of target is proportional...The problem of allocating a number of exploration tasks to a team of mobile robots in dynamic environments was studied. The team mission is to visit several distributed targets. The path cost of target is proportional to the distance that a robot has to move to visit the target. The team objective is to minimize the average path cost of target over all targets. Finding an optimal allocation is strongly NP-hard. The proposed algorithm can produce a near-optimal solution to it. The allocation can be cast in terms of a multi-round single-item auction by which robots bid on targets. In each auction round, one target is assigned to a robot that produces the lowest path cost of the target. The allocated targets form a forest where each tree corresponds a robot’s exploring targets set. Each robot constructs an exploring path through depth-first search in its target tree. The time complexity of the proposed algorithm is polynomial. Simulation experiments show that the allocating method is valid.展开更多
As a result of the popularity of mobile devices,Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) has attracted a lot of attention. Task allocation is a significant problem in MCS. Most previous studies mainly focused on stationary spatial ...As a result of the popularity of mobile devices,Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) has attracted a lot of attention. Task allocation is a significant problem in MCS. Most previous studies mainly focused on stationary spatial tasks while neglecting the changes of tasks and workers. In this paper,the proposed hybrid two-phase task allocation algorithm considers heterogeneous tasks and diverse workers.For heterogeneous tasks,there are different start times and deadlines. In each round,the tasks are divided into urgent and non-urgent tasks. The diverse workers are classified into opportunistic and participatory workers.The former complete tasks on their way,so they only receive a fixed payment as employment compensation,while the latter commute a certain distance that a distance fee is paid to complete the tasks in each round as needed apart from basic employment compensation. The task allocation stage is divided into multiple rounds consisting of the opportunistic worker phase and the participatory worker phase. At the start of each round,the hiring of opportunistic workers is considered because they cost less to complete each task. The Poisson distribution is used to predict the location that the workers are going to visit,and greedily choose the ones with high utility. For participatory workers,the urgent tasks are clustered by employing hierarchical clustering after selecting the tasks from the uncompleted task set.After completing the above steps,the tasks are assigned to participatory workers by extending the Kuhn-Munkres (KM) algorithm.The rest of the uncompleted tasks are non-urgent tasks which are added to the task set for the next round.Experiments are conducted based on a real dataset,Brightkite,and three typical baseline methods are selected for comparison. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of total cost as well as efficiency under the constraint that all tasks are completed.展开更多
An agile supply chain can be defined as a dynamic s up ply network of some autonomous or semi-autonomous business entities, which can well adapt to the competitive, cooperative and dynamic market environment Agile sup...An agile supply chain can be defined as a dynamic s up ply network of some autonomous or semi-autonomous business entities, which can well adapt to the competitive, cooperative and dynamic market environment Agile supply chain needs quick response ability to the unpredictable and ever-changin g market environment, and the entities in agile supply chain have complex relati onships of competition, cooperation and dynamics, which make agile supply chain management a very complex process that includes a lot of no-linear, dynamic and uncertain factors. There is a common opinion that applying multi-agent collaborative work environm ent is an appropriate method to solve agile supply chain management problem. We have presented a model based on coordination of Multi-Agent System (MAS) two ye ars ago, and it has already been proved to be a rather better model by practical project. In the model, we apply MAS structure, and agents negotiate each other to achieve coordination, so the communication among agents becomes very impo rtant. Task allocation is a very common problem in agile supply chain management, and t here are many complex task re-allocation problems at the transaction level. In such situations, agents need to negotiate with others to produce effective alloc ation results. But traditional negotiation mechanisms often cease to work as a r esult of communication or computational complexities. Auctions provide an effici ent way of resolving one-to-many negotiations, so in this paper, we choose Eng lish auction to design a sufficient negotiation mechanism, and use combinatorial auction to solve the complex task re-allocation problems. We first analyze the features of task allocation problems in agile supply chain and build a problem model, and then design a comprehensive task allocation mechanism based on auctio n theories. Finally, by examining our results for what it is, essentially, an ap plication of game-theory and mechanism design to existing application, we draw some general conclusions on how such concepts can be operationalized in automate d agents. Some further research on the problem is also discussed.展开更多
Task allocation for munition swarms is constrained by reachable region limitations and real-time requirements.This paper proposes a reachable region guided distributed coalition formation game(RRGDCF)method to address...Task allocation for munition swarms is constrained by reachable region limitations and real-time requirements.This paper proposes a reachable region guided distributed coalition formation game(RRGDCF)method to address these issues.To enable efficient online task allocation,a reachable region prediction strategy based on fully connected neural networks(FCNNs)is developed.This strategy integrates high-fidelity data generated from the golden section method and low-fidelity data from geometric approximation in an optimal mixing ratio to form multi-fidelity samples,significantly enhancing prediction accuracy and efficiency under limited high-fidelity samples.These predictions are then incorporated into the coalition formation game framework.A tabu search mechanism guided by the reachable region center directs munitions to execute tasks within their respective reachable regions,mitigating redundant operations on ineffective coalition structures.Furthermore,an adaptive guidance coalition formation strategy optimizes allocation plans by leveraging the hit probabilities of munitions,replacing traditional random coalition formation methods.Simulation results demonstrate that RRGDCF surpasses the contract network protocol and traditional coalition formation game algorithms in optimality and computational efficiency.Hardware experiments further validate the method's practicality in dynamic scenarios.展开更多
Cloud computing represents a novel computing model in the contemporary technology world. In a cloud system, the com- puting power of virtual machines （VMs） and network status can greatly affect the completion time o...Cloud computing represents a novel computing model in the contemporary technology world. In a cloud system, the com- puting power of virtual machines （VMs） and network status can greatly affect the completion time of data intensive tasks. How- ever, most of the current resource allocation policies focus only on network conditions and physical hosts. And the computing power of VMs is largely ignored. This paper proposes a comprehensive resource allocation policy which consists of a data intensive task scheduling algorithm that takes account of computing power of VMs and a VM allocation policy that considers bandwidth between storage nodes and hosts. The VM allocation policy includes VM placement and VM migration algorithms. Related simulations show that the proposed algorithms can greatly reduce the task comple- tion time and keep good load balance of physical hosts at the same time.展开更多
Multi-target tracking(MTT) is a research hotspot of wireless sensor networks at present.A self-organized dynamic cluster task allocation scheme is used to implement collaborative task allocation for MTT in WSN and a s...Multi-target tracking(MTT) is a research hotspot of wireless sensor networks at present.A self-organized dynamic cluster task allocation scheme is used to implement collaborative task allocation for MTT in WSN and a special cluster member(CM) node selection method is put forward in the scheme.An energy efficiency model was proposed under consideration of both energy consumption and remaining energy balance in the network.A tracking accuracy model based on area-sum principle was also presented through analyzing the localization accuracy of triangulation.Then,the two models mentioned above were combined to establish dynamic cluster member selection model for MTT where a comprehensive performance index function was designed to guide the CM node selection.This selection was fulfilled using genetic algorithm.Simulation results show that this method keeps both energy efficiency and tracking quality in optimal state,and also indicate the validity of genetic algorithm in implementing CM node selection.展开更多
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China (12202293)Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2023NSFSC0393,2022NSFSC1952)。
文摘A task allocation problem for the heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm in unknown environments is studied in this paper.Considering that the actual mission environment information may be unknown,the UAV swarm needs to detect the environment first and then attack the detected targets.The heterogeneity of UAVs,multiple types of tasks,and the dynamic nature of task environment lead to uneven load and time sequence problems.This paper proposes an improved contract net protocol (CNP) based task allocation scheme,which effectively balances the load of UAVs and improves the task efficiency.Firstly,two types of task models are established,including regional reconnaissance tasks and target attack tasks.Secondly,for regional reconnaissance tasks,an improved CNP algorithm using the uncertain contract is developed.Through uncertain contracts,the area size of the regional reconnaissance task is determined adaptively after this task assignment,which can improve reconnaissance efficiency and resource utilization.Thirdly,for target attack tasks,an improved CNP algorithm using the fuzzy integrated evaluation and the double-layer negotiation is presented to enhance collaborative attack efficiency through adjusting the assignment sequence adaptively and multi-layer allocation.Finally,the effectiveness and advantages of the improved method are verified through comparison simulations.
基金Project(61801495)supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
文摘The application of multiple UAVs in complicated tasks has been widely explored in recent years.Due to the advantages of flexibility,cheapness and consistence,the performance of heterogeneous multi-UAVs with proper cooperative task allocation is superior to over the single UAV.Accordingly,several constraints should be satisfied to realize the efficient cooperation,such as special time-window,variant equipment,specified execution sequence.Hence,a proper task allocation in UAVs is the crucial point for the final success.The task allocation problem of the heterogeneous UAVs can be formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem coupled with the UAV dynamics.To this end,a multi-layer encoding strategy and a constraint scheduling method are designed to handle the critical logical and physical constraints.In addition,four optimization objectives:completion time,target reward,UAV damage,and total range,are introduced to evaluate various allocation plans.Subsequently,to efficiently solve the multi-objective optimization problem,an improved multi-objective quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization(IMOQPSO)algorithm is proposed.During this algorithm,a modified solution evaluation method is designed to guide algorithmic evolution;both the convergence and distribution of particles are considered comprehensively;and boundary solutions which may produce some special allocation plans are preserved.Moreover,adaptive parameter control and mixed update mechanism are also introduced in this algorithm.Finally,both the proposed model and algorithm are verified by simulation experiments.
基金This work was supported by the National Natural Science and Technology Innovation 2030 Major Project of Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2018AAA0101200)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61502522,61502534)+4 种基金the Equipment Pre-Research Field Fund(JZX7Y20190253036101)the Equipment Pre-Research Ministry of Education Joint Fund(6141A02033703)Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation(2020JQ-493)the Military Science Project of the National Social Science Fund(WJ2019-SKJJ-C-092)the Theoretical Research Foundation of Armed Police Engineering University(WJY202148).
文摘It is difficult for the double suppression division algorithm of bee colony to solve the spatio-temporal coupling or have higher dimensional attributes and undertake sudden tasks.Using the idea of clustering,after clustering tasks according to spatio-temporal attributes,the clustered groups are linked into task sub-chains according to similarity.Then,based on the correlation between clusters,the child chains are connected to form a task chain.Therefore,the limitation is solved that the task chain in the bee colony algorithm can only be connected according to one dimension.When a sudden task occurs,a method of inserting a small number of tasks into the original task chain and a task chain reconstruction method are designed according to the relative relationship between the number of sudden tasks and the number of remaining tasks.Through the above improvements,the algorithm can be used to process tasks with spatio-temporal coupling and burst tasks.In order to reflect the efficiency and applicability of the algorithm,a task allocation model for the unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)group is constructed,and a one-to-one correspondence between the improved bee colony double suppression division algorithm and each attribute in the UAV group is proposed.Task assignment has been constructed.The study uses the self-adjusting characteristics of the bee colony to achieve task allocation.Simulation verification and algorithm comparison show that the algorithm has stronger planning advantages and algorithm performance.
基金Project(A1420060159) supported by the National Basic Research of China projects(60234030 60404021) supported bythe National Natural Science Foundation of China
文摘The problem of allocating a number of exploration tasks to a team of mobile robots in dynamic environments was studied. The team mission is to visit several distributed targets. The path cost of target is proportional to the distance that a robot has to move to visit the target. The team objective is to minimize the average path cost of target over all targets. Finding an optimal allocation is strongly NP-hard. The proposed algorithm can produce a near-optimal solution to it. The allocation can be cast in terms of a multi-round single-item auction by which robots bid on targets. In each auction round, one target is assigned to a robot that produces the lowest path cost of the target. The allocated targets form a forest where each tree corresponds a robot’s exploring targets set. Each robot constructs an exploring path through depth-first search in its target tree. The time complexity of the proposed algorithm is polynomial. Simulation experiments show that the allocating method is valid.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(62102275,U20A20182,61873177,62072322)Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province in China(BK20210704)Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China(21KJB520025).
文摘As a result of the popularity of mobile devices,Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) has attracted a lot of attention. Task allocation is a significant problem in MCS. Most previous studies mainly focused on stationary spatial tasks while neglecting the changes of tasks and workers. In this paper,the proposed hybrid two-phase task allocation algorithm considers heterogeneous tasks and diverse workers.For heterogeneous tasks,there are different start times and deadlines. In each round,the tasks are divided into urgent and non-urgent tasks. The diverse workers are classified into opportunistic and participatory workers.The former complete tasks on their way,so they only receive a fixed payment as employment compensation,while the latter commute a certain distance that a distance fee is paid to complete the tasks in each round as needed apart from basic employment compensation. The task allocation stage is divided into multiple rounds consisting of the opportunistic worker phase and the participatory worker phase. At the start of each round,the hiring of opportunistic workers is considered because they cost less to complete each task. The Poisson distribution is used to predict the location that the workers are going to visit,and greedily choose the ones with high utility. For participatory workers,the urgent tasks are clustered by employing hierarchical clustering after selecting the tasks from the uncompleted task set.After completing the above steps,the tasks are assigned to participatory workers by extending the Kuhn-Munkres (KM) algorithm.The rest of the uncompleted tasks are non-urgent tasks which are added to the task set for the next round.Experiments are conducted based on a real dataset,Brightkite,and three typical baseline methods are selected for comparison. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of total cost as well as efficiency under the constraint that all tasks are completed.
文摘An agile supply chain can be defined as a dynamic s up ply network of some autonomous or semi-autonomous business entities, which can well adapt to the competitive, cooperative and dynamic market environment Agile supply chain needs quick response ability to the unpredictable and ever-changin g market environment, and the entities in agile supply chain have complex relati onships of competition, cooperation and dynamics, which make agile supply chain management a very complex process that includes a lot of no-linear, dynamic and uncertain factors. There is a common opinion that applying multi-agent collaborative work environm ent is an appropriate method to solve agile supply chain management problem. We have presented a model based on coordination of Multi-Agent System (MAS) two ye ars ago, and it has already been proved to be a rather better model by practical project. In the model, we apply MAS structure, and agents negotiate each other to achieve coordination, so the communication among agents becomes very impo rtant. Task allocation is a very common problem in agile supply chain management, and t here are many complex task re-allocation problems at the transaction level. In such situations, agents need to negotiate with others to produce effective alloc ation results. But traditional negotiation mechanisms often cease to work as a r esult of communication or computational complexities. Auctions provide an effici ent way of resolving one-to-many negotiations, so in this paper, we choose Eng lish auction to design a sufficient negotiation mechanism, and use combinatorial auction to solve the complex task re-allocation problems. We first analyze the features of task allocation problems in agile supply chain and build a problem model, and then design a comprehensive task allocation mechanism based on auctio n theories. Finally, by examining our results for what it is, essentially, an ap plication of game-theory and mechanism design to existing application, we draw some general conclusions on how such concepts can be operationalized in automate d agents. Some further research on the problem is also discussed.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant 52372347,52425211,52272360)。
文摘Task allocation for munition swarms is constrained by reachable region limitations and real-time requirements.This paper proposes a reachable region guided distributed coalition formation game(RRGDCF)method to address these issues.To enable efficient online task allocation,a reachable region prediction strategy based on fully connected neural networks(FCNNs)is developed.This strategy integrates high-fidelity data generated from the golden section method and low-fidelity data from geometric approximation in an optimal mixing ratio to form multi-fidelity samples,significantly enhancing prediction accuracy and efficiency under limited high-fidelity samples.These predictions are then incorporated into the coalition formation game framework.A tabu search mechanism guided by the reachable region center directs munitions to execute tasks within their respective reachable regions,mitigating redundant operations on ineffective coalition structures.Furthermore,an adaptive guidance coalition formation strategy optimizes allocation plans by leveraging the hit probabilities of munitions,replacing traditional random coalition formation methods.Simulation results demonstrate that RRGDCF surpasses the contract network protocol and traditional coalition formation game algorithms in optimality and computational efficiency.Hardware experiments further validate the method's practicality in dynamic scenarios.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(6120235461272422)the Scientific and Technological Support Project(Industry)of Jiangsu Province(BE2011189)
文摘Cloud computing represents a novel computing model in the contemporary technology world. In a cloud system, the com- puting power of virtual machines （VMs） and network status can greatly affect the completion time of data intensive tasks. How- ever, most of the current resource allocation policies focus only on network conditions and physical hosts. And the computing power of VMs is largely ignored. This paper proposes a comprehensive resource allocation policy which consists of a data intensive task scheduling algorithm that takes account of computing power of VMs and a VM allocation policy that considers bandwidth between storage nodes and hosts. The VM allocation policy includes VM placement and VM migration algorithms. Related simulations show that the proposed algorithms can greatly reduce the task comple- tion time and keep good load balance of physical hosts at the same time.
基金Projects(90820302,60805027)supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaProject(200805330005)supported by the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education,ChinaProject(2009FJ4030)supported by Academician Foundation of Hunan Province,China
文摘Multi-target tracking(MTT) is a research hotspot of wireless sensor networks at present.A self-organized dynamic cluster task allocation scheme is used to implement collaborative task allocation for MTT in WSN and a special cluster member(CM) node selection method is put forward in the scheme.An energy efficiency model was proposed under consideration of both energy consumption and remaining energy balance in the network.A tracking accuracy model based on area-sum principle was also presented through analyzing the localization accuracy of triangulation.Then,the two models mentioned above were combined to establish dynamic cluster member selection model for MTT where a comprehensive performance index function was designed to guide the CM node selection.This selection was fulfilled using genetic algorithm.Simulation results show that this method keeps both energy efficiency and tracking quality in optimal state,and also indicate the validity of genetic algorithm in implementing CM node selection.
