Rage amongst the machines: A biological approach to reducing spatial interference in multi-robot systems

Interference is a common problem for animals, and can be characterized as a competition for different types of resources such as food, mates or territory. In the case of multi-robot systems, similar problems arise. Many species have evolved aggressive displays as a more efficient alternative to physical combat to solve conflicts over resources. This thesis considers a transportation task in which a team of robots with no centralized control frequently interfere with each other. This thesis describes two new, principled approaches to selecting an aggression level, based on a robot's investment in a task. The methods are economically rational. Simulation experiments in an office-type environment and a smaller-scale real world implementation show that under some special circumstances, the methods are able to significantly improve system performance compared to a similar competition with a random outcome.