Decentralized trust-based self-organizing cooperative control

In this paper, we propose a mechanism for decentralized trust-based self-organizing cooperative control. The driving force of this work is the idea that not all agents are equally adept to take the role of a group leader at a given moment. Depending on the application, agents with the most desirable sensing, communication or processing capabilities should take the leading role. Hence, our main objective is to establish a group hierarchy in a decentralized fashion and reconfigure the underlying communication topology accordingly. The hierarchy is established upon trust values towards each agent in the group. These trust values reflect the reputation that each agent enjoys within the group. Initially, we construct observed trust values of each agent by exploiting its local observations and observations received from the neighbors. Next, these observed trust values are passed on to the mechanism that favors more accomplished agents by assigning those agents higher trust values. Since this mechanism is decentralized, scenarios with unequal trusts values toward an agent need to be handled with caution in order not to compromise the collective behavior. To that end, we employ adaptive control concepts when negotiating trust values. The proposed mechanism is illustrated through a decentralized formation control case study.