The search for coordination: Knowledge-guided abstraction and search in a hierarchical behavior space

Abstract

Coordination is a search process, where individuals must find appropriate activities that allow them to achieve individual and collective goals. In this paper, we motivate and summarize the elements of coordination search, and use these elements to highlight how traditionally distinct coordination techniques can be viewed as similar search processes but at different levels of abstraction. In particular, the temporal extents and relationships among activities leads to search as organizational design, as multiagent planning, or as distributed resource scheduling. We update the current status of some of our search techniques for coordination, emphasizing issues such as the effects of abstraction in controlling distributed search and how knowledge can be used in hypothesizing alternative activities. The practical implications of coordination search are briefly illustrated in the context of multirobot control and distributed meeting scheduling.