Formalizing the Impact of Diversity on Performance in a Heterogeneous Swarm of Robots
Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar

Citation
Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar. "Formalizing the Impact of Diversity on Performance in a Heterogeneous Swarm of Robots". IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 16, May, 2016.

Abstract
We are interested in a principled study of the impact of diversity in heterogeneous large-scale distributed robotic systems. In order to evaluate the implications of heterogeneity on performance, we consider the concrete problem of distributing a large group of robots among a set of tasks that require specialized capabilities in order to be completed. We model the system of heterogeneous robots as a community of species, where each species (robot type) is defined by the traits (capabilities) that it owns. We develop a continuous model of the system at a macroscopic level, and formulate an optimization problem that produces an optimal set of transition rates for each species, so that the desired trait distribution is reached as quickly as possible. In order to evaluate the effects of heterogeneity, we propose a diversity metric that defines the notion of eigenspecies. We show that our metric correlates with performance: the higher the cardinality of the eigenspecies, the harder it becomes to optimize the system. Our approach is validated over multiple levels of abstraction, and real robot results confirm its validity on physical platforms.

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Citation formats

• HTML

  Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar. <a
  href="http://www.terraswarm.org/pubs/730.html"
  >Formalizing the Impact of Diversity on Performance in a
  Heterogeneous Swarm of Robots</a>, IEEE International
  Conference on Robotics and Automation, 16, May, 2016.

• Plain text

  Amanda Prorok, M. Ani Hsieh, Vijay Kumar. "Formalizing
  the Impact of Diversity on Performance in a Heterogeneous
  Swarm of Robots". IEEE International Conference on
  Robotics and Automation, 16, May, 2016.

• BibTeX

  @inproceedings{ProrokHsiehKumar16_FormalizingImpactOfDiversityOnPerformanceInHeterogeneous,
      author = {Amanda Prorok and M. Ani Hsieh and Vijay Kumar},
      title = {Formalizing the Impact of Diversity on Performance
                in a Heterogeneous Swarm of Robots},
      booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
                Automation},
      day = {16},
      month = {May},
      year = {2016},
      abstract = {We are interested in a principled study of the
                impact of diversity in heterogeneous large-scale
                distributed robotic systems. In order to evaluate
                the implications of heterogeneity on performance,
                we consider the concrete problem of distributing a
                large group of robots among a set of tasks that
                require specialized capabilities in order to be
                completed. We model the system of heterogeneous
                robots as a community of species, where each
                species (robot type) is defined by the traits
                (capabilities) that it owns. We develop a
                continuous model of the system at a macroscopic
                level, and formulate an optimization problem that
                produces an optimal set of transition rates for
                each species, so that the desired trait
                distribution is reached as quickly as possible. In
                order to evaluate the effects of heterogeneity, we
                propose a diversity metric that defines the notion
                of eigenspecies. We show that our metric
                correlates with performance: the higher the
                cardinality of the eigenspecies, the harder it
                becomes to optimize the system. Our approach is
                validated over multiple levels of abstraction, and
                real robot results confirm its validity on
                physical platforms.},
      URL = {http://terraswarm.org/pubs/730.html}
  }
  

Posted by Amanda Prorok, PhD on 3 Feb 2016.
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