The Emergence of Division of Labor in Multi-Agent Systems

Division of labor in natural systems enables resiliency in times of dynamic change. Researchers have shown that division of labor can emerge in homogeneous populations predicated on the system's environment and the distribution of agent task bias. This article demonstrates that the emergence of division of labor in homogenous populations is also impacted by agent decision functions, agent population size, and environmental constraints. Results show, one, agent decision functions and population size have a significant impact on the division of labor scores, whereas, the influence of environmental constraints depends upon the chosen agent decision function. Two, results indicate that high division of labor scores do not necessarily translate to higher resource production, which, again, appears tied to agent decision functions. Three, although agent population size possesses a positive correlation to division of labor scores, agent decision functions play a more critical role in its emergence.

[1]  Gilbert L. Peterson,et al.  A Macro-Level Order Metric for Self-Organizing Adaptive Systems , 2018, 2018 IEEE 12th International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO).

[2]  D. Pais.  Emergent Collective Behavior in Multi-Agent Systems: An Evolutionary Perspective , 2012 .

[3]  Yi-an Zhu,et al.  Study and design of multi-robots pursuing based on improved ant colony labor division method , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Automation Engineering (CSAE).

[4]  J. Traniello,et al.  Ecology, evolution and division of labour in social insects , 1997, Animal Behaviour.

[5]  K. Hollis.  Ants and antlions: The impact of ecology, coevolution and learning on an insect predator-prey relationship , 2017, Behavioural Processes.

[6]  Bernhard Bauer,et al.  Improving the Efficiency of Self-Organizing Emergent Systems by an Advisor , 2010, 2010 Seventh IEEE International Conference and Workshops on Engineering of Autonomic and Autonomous Systems.

[7]  J. Fewell,et al.  Models of division of labor in social insects. , 2001, Annual review of entomology.

[8]  V. M. Oliveira,et al.  The emergence of division of labor in a structured response threshold model , 2019, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications.

[9]  Sang Joon Kim,et al.  A Mathematical Theory of Communication , 2006 .

[10]  Raphaël Jeanson,et al.  Emergence of division of labour in halictine bees: contributions of social interactions and behavioural variance , 2005, Animal Behaviour.

[11]  M. Sol.  The general pickup and delivery problem , 2010 .

[12]  J. Pruitt,et al.  RETRACTED: Individual differences in personality and behavioural plasticity facilitate division of labour in social spider colonies , 2014, Animal Behaviour.

[13]  Marco Dorigo,et al.  Swarm intelligence: from natural to artificial systems , 1999 .

[14]  A D Wissner-Gross,et al.  Causal entropic forces. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[15]  D. Gordon.  The organization of work in social insect colonies , 1996, Nature.

[16]  Marcus W Feldman,et al.  Evolution of division of labor: emergence of different activities among group members. , 2014, Journal of theoretical biology.

[17]  Yoav Shoham,et al.  Multiagent Systems - Algorithmic, Game-Theoretic, and Logical Foundations , 2009 .

[18]  G. Robinson.  Regulation of division of labor in insect societies. , 1992, Annual review of entomology.

[19]  Katia P. Sycara,et al.  Provably-Good Distributed Algorithm for Constrained Multi-Robot Task Assignment for Grouped Tasks , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[20]  Anna Dornhaus,et al.  Spatial organization and division of labour in the bumblebee Bombus impatiens , 2009, Animal Behaviour.

[21]  Root Gorelick,et al.  Normalized Mutual Entropy in Biology: Quantifying Division of Labor , 2004, The American Naturalist.

[22]  Raphaël Jeanson,et al.  Emergence of increased division of labor as a function of group size , 2007, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

[23]  Baoqian Lu,et al.  Nutrient addition increases the capacity for division of labor and the benefits of clonal integration in an invasive plant. , 2018, The Science of the total environment.

[24]  A. Duarte.  Evolution of self-organized division of labor in social insects , 2012 .

[25]  Álvaro Gutiérrez,et al.  Variable Threshold Algorithm for Division of Labor Analyzed as a Dynamical System , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics.

[26]  Amanda J. C. Sharkey,et al.  Strategies of division of labour for improving task efficiency in multi-robot systems , 2009, 2009 World Congress on Nature & Biologically Inspired Computing (NaBIC).

[27]  Roman Garnett,et al.  The entropic basis of collective behaviour , 2014, Journal of The Royal Society Interface.

[28]  D. Kronauer,et al.  “Fitness benefits and emergent division of labor at the onset of group-living” , 2018, Nature.

[29]  H. Van Dyke Parunak,et al.  Entropy and self-organization in multi-agent systems , 2001, AGENTS '01.

[30]  DaeEun Kim,et al.  History-Based Response Threshold Model for Division of Labor in Multi-Agent Systems , 2017, Sensors.

[31]  Sandra Lowe.  Architecture Based Design Of Multi Agent Systems , 2016 .

[32]  Anna Dornhaus,et al.  Task switching is associated with temporal delays in Temnothorax rugatulus ants , 2017, Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology.

[33]  Emmanuel Tannenbaum,et al.  When does division of labor lead to increased system output? , 2006, Journal of theoretical biology.