Approaches to dynamic team sizes

This paper elucidates the impact of comparative mechanisms for dynamically adapting team sizes in simulated robot teams that must accomplish a collective construction task. The first approach adapts team size using genotypic diversity of team behaviors in a population of behaviors. The second approach adapts team size as a function of behavioral success (degree of task accomplishment). Task complexity in the collective construction task is equated with the degree of cooperation required between robots for task accomplishment. Task complexity, and hence the most suitable team size, is not known a priori. Results indicate that adapting team size based on genotype diversity is beneficial for collective construction when the task requires a low degree of cooperation. However, when a relatively high degree of cooperation is required for task accomplishment, then dynamically adapting team size according to genotype diversity or behavioral efficacy yields comparable results.