Multirobot coordination by auctioning POMDPs

We consider the problem of task assignment and execution in multirobot systems, by proposing a procedure for bid estimation in auction protocols. Auctions are of interest to multirobot systems because they provide a flexible way to coordinate the assignment of tasks to robots. The main idea is to exploit task execution controllers that rely on the availability of value functions. These provide a natural way to obtain the bid values for a given task, compared to the heuristic and ad-hoc bid estimation procedures in common use. The Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) framework is used to compute policies for the execution of tasks by each agent, with the task bid values obtained directly from the respective value functions. Several simulation examples are presented for an urban surveillance environment, illustrating the applicability of our ideas.