The Emergence of Division of Labor in Multi-Agent Systems

Authors

David W. King, Air Force Institute of Technology
Gilbert L. Peterson, Air Force Institute of TechnologyFollow

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

6-2019

Abstract

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.

Comments

This conference paper is published by IEEE as cited, and is available by purchase or subscription through the DOI link below.

DOI

10.1109/SASO.2019.00022

Source Publication

2019 IEEE 13th International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO)

Recommended Citation

D. W. King and G. L. Peterson, "The Emergence of Division of Labor in Multi-Agent Systems," 2019 IEEE 13th International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO), Umea, Sweden, 2019, pp. 107-116, doi: 10.1109/SASO.2019.00022.