IoRT-Based Distributed Algorithm for Robust Team Formation and Its Application to Smart City Operation

Robust team formation (RTF) is an important problem in multi-agent systems. Existing research addresses offline robust team formation. Our work addresses the online version of the problem where task requirements are gathered, team members are recruited, and the newly formed team executes the task with robustness guarantees. An Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) based distributed robust team formation (DRTF) algorithm is developed to form a minimal-cost robust team for a given degree of robustness. We have implemented the proposed approach using ARGoS, a realistic multi-robot simulator, and validated the approach using a smart city operation of an emergency medical team attending an accident. The simulation results illustrate that team members are decided at run-time; cannot be determined a priori, since the robots’ states, locations, and roles change with time.