On the right combination of altruism and randomness in the motion of homogeneous distributed autonomous agents

Subjective Trusts for the Control of Mobile Robots under Uncertainty

“…At the next steps, the suggested method is planned to be implemented in the search and foraging algorithms. In the simple case of following toward a single target, the exact values of the trusts can be defined using the recently calculated probabilities of altruistic and egoistic steps of the agents [ 11 ], while in more complicated scenarios, additional efforts and comparisons of the suggested method with the known techniques will be required.…”

“…The second reason is more complicated and follows from the nature of decision-making in the swarms, which does not imply direct minimization of the probabilities of outcomes or maximization of the probabilities of rewards (see the classical results by Kahneman and Tversky [ 9 ] and their recent validation [ 10 ]). Even in the simple case of motion toward the single target, an optimal behavior of the swarm involves a certain level of altruism of the swarm members such that in some steps the agents deny their movements to allow the movements of their neighbors [ 11 ]. In each specific task, such steps can be specified or at least approximated by stochastic optimization, however, in the general case, control of the swarm and the reactive activity of its members that leads to near optimal teleological behavior is still unclear.…”