P Leopardi

Paolo Leopardi, Heiko Hamann, Jonas Kuckling et al.

Task specialization can lead to simpler robot behaviors and higher efficiency in multi-robot systems. Previous works have shown the emergence of task specialization during evolutionary optimization, focusing on feasibility rather than costs. In this study, we take first steps toward a cost-benefit analysis of task specialization in robot swarms using a foraging scenario. We evolve artificial neural networks as generalist behaviors for the entire task and as task-specialist behaviors for subtasks within a limited evaluation budget. We show that generalist behaviors can be successfully optimized while the evolved task-specialist controllers fail to cooperate efficiently, resulting in worse performance than the generalists. Consequently, task specialization does not necessarily improve efficiency when optimization budget is limited.

Paolo Leopardi, Heiko Hamann, Jonas Kuckling et al.

Task specialization can improve the efficiency of multi-robot systems (MRSs). Previous works have investigated the emergence of task-specialist robot controllers through evolutionary optimization and have argued that task specialization is more likely to evolve when subtask behaviors are readily available as building blocks. However, the available evaluation budget must be distributed across all subtasks, whereas a single generalist behavior can exploit the entire budget for its own optimization. We present a cost-benefit analysis of evolving task-specialist versus generalist behaviors in a foraging scenario here. In a physics-based robotics simulator, we study the total evaluation budget required to evolve task-specialist behaviors that outperform generalist behaviors across MRS sizes. We show that with increasing MRS size, a lower total evaluation budget is sufficient to evolve specialists that outperform generalists.