Information sharing in multi-agent search and task allocation problems

The impact of information sharing in the generalized problem of combined search and task allocation has not been studied in detail in the context of multi-agent systems. Thus, a simple swarm intelligence mechanism called call-out and a basic game theoretic auction mechanism are compared and analyzed in terms of communication distance and information fault tolerance. Simulations show that the auction mechanism performs well under varying communication distances but has problems when the communication distance is low and when facing faulty information. The call-out mechanism, however, performs significantly better when communication distances are low and when information transfer between agents is uncertain. Furthermore, call-out performs almost equal to auction for intermittent communication distances but due to the inherent property of "over-coordination" for large communication distances agents become "over-committed" in solving tasks at the expense of searching for new tasks. This fundamental system behavior can only be studied in the combined search and task allocation problem.