Multi-Robot Task Allocation

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Overview

Multi-robot task allocation studies how teams divide tasks so robots with different abilities can complete missions efficiently, safely, and reliably. Common approaches include auctions and consensus for distributed assignment, matching and mathematical optimization for structured problems, and reinforcement learning or graph-based policies for dynamic settings. In many applications, allocation is coupled with routing, path planning, scheduling, communication, and constraints such as battery life or shared resources. A central challenge is balancing solution quality with scalability and responsiveness, especially when robots have partial information, unreliable communication, or changing tasks.

Latest papers

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114 papers16 papers in the last four weeks, down 16% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. HECTOR: Human-centric Hierarchical Coordination and Supervision of Robotic Fleets under Continual Temporal Tasks

    Apr 13, 2026Shen Wang, Yinhang Luo, Jie Li +1Multi-Robot CoordinationHuman-Robot Interaction

    the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China · National University of Defense Technology, Hunan 410073, China

  2. Event-Triggered Adaptive Consensus for Multi-Robot Task Allocation

    Apr 8, 2026Fidel Aznar, Mar Pujol, Álvaro DíezMulti-Robot Task AllocationSwarm Robotics

    Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain

  3. Multi-Robot Multi-Queue Control via Exhaustive Assignment Actor-Critic Learning

    Apr 4, 2026Mohammad Merati, H. M. Sabbir Ahmad, Wenchao Li +1Multi-Robot Task AllocationRobot Policy Learning

    Divisions of Systems Engineering, Boston University, 8 St Mary’s St, Boston, MA 02215, United States. · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Boston University, 8 St Mary’s St, Boston, MA 02215, United States.

  4. Collaborative Task and Path Planning for Heterogeneous Robotic Teams using Multi-Agent PPO

    Apr 1, 2026Matthias Rubio, Julia Richter, Hendrik Kolvenbach +1Multi-Robot Task AllocationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Robotic Systems Lab (RSL), ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

  5. Large Neighborhood Search for Multi-Agent Task Assignment and Path Finding with Precedence Constraints

    Mar 30, 2026Viraj Parimi, Brian C. WilliamsMulti-Agent Path FindingMulti-Robot Task Allocation

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  6. UMBRELLA: Uncertainty-aware Multi-robot Reactive Coordination under Dynamic Temporal Logic Tasks

    Mar 26, 2026Qisheng Zhao, Meng Guo, Hengxuan Du +2Risk-Sensitive PlanningMulti-Robot Coordination

    School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China · Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zürich, Zürich 8092, Switzerland

  7. Integrated Multi-Drone Task Allocation, Sequencing, and Optimal Trajectory Generation in Obstacle-Rich 3D Environments

    Mar 26, 2026Yunes Alqudsi, Murat MakaraciMulti-Robot Motion PlanningAerial Robotics

    Aerospace Engineering Department, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkiye · Interdisciplinary Research Center for Aviation and Space Exploration, KFUPM, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia · Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkiye

  8. Enhancing Drone Light Shows Performances: Optimal Allocation and Trajectories for Swarm Drone Formations

    Mar 25, 2026Yunes AlqudsiTrajectory GenerationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

  9. Wireless communication empowers online scheduling of partially-observable transportation multi-robot systems in a smart factory

    Mar 25, 2026Yaxin Liao, Qimei Cui, Kwang-Cheng Chen +5Smart ManufacturingMulti-Robot Coordination

    National Engineering Research Center of Mobile Network Technologies, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China · Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620 USA · School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

  10. Fleet-Level Battery-Health-Aware Scheduling for Autonomous Mobile Robots

    Mar 24, 2026Jiachen Li, Shihao Li, Jian Chu +2Multi-Robot Task AllocationMulti-Agent System Optimization

    University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 USA

  11. Auction-Based Task Allocation with Energy-Conscientious Trajectory Optimization for AMR Fleets

    Mar 23, 2026Jiachen Li, Soovadeep Bakshi, Jian Chu +2Multi-Robot Task AllocationMulti-Agent Resource Allocation

    All authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.

  12. Routing and Control for Marine Oil-Spill Cleanup with a Boom-Towing Vessel Fleet

    Mar 17, 2026Snir Carmeli, Adir Morgan, Kiril SoloveyDisaster ResponseMulti-Robot Coordination

    The authors are with the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

  13. COHORT: Hybrid RL for Collaborative Large DNN Inference on Multi-Robot Systems Under Real-Time Constraints

    Mar 11, 2026Mohammad Saeid Anwar, Anuradha Ravi, Indrajeet Ghosh +3Efficient Neural Network InferenceMulti-Robot Task Allocation

    University of Maryland Baltimore County · DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory

  14. A Generalized Voronoi Graph based Coverage Control Approach for Non-Convex Environment

    Mar 10, 2026Zuyi Guo, Ronghao Zheng, Meiqin Liu +1Multi-Robot CoordinationMulti-Robot Task Allocation

    the College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China, and also with the State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China · the National Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Hybrid Augmented Intelligence, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China, and also with the State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

  15. Scale-Plan: Scalable Language-Enabled Task Planning for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Teams

    Mar 9, 2026Piyush Gupta, Sangjae Bae, Jiachen Li +1Large Language Model-Based Robot PlanningSymbolic Planning

    Honda Research Institute, San Jose, CA 95134, USA. · Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

  16. VORL-EXPLORE: A Hybrid Learning Planning Approach to Multi-Robot Exploration in Dynamic Environments

    Mar 9, 2026Ning Liu, Sen Shen, Zheng Li +4Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    The University of Western Australia · The Chinese University of Hong Kong · Karlsruhe Institute of Technology +1

  17. C2^2-Explorer: Contiguity-Driven Task Allocation with Connectivity-Aware Task Representation for Decentralized Multi-UAV Exploration

    Mar 8, 2026Xinlu Yan, Mingjie Zhang, Yuhao Fang +5Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Task Allocation

    School of Intelligence Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China · Robotics and Autonomous Systems Thrust, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, Guangdong, China · Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

  18. Collaborative Planning with Concurrent Synchronization for Operationally Constrained UAV-UGV Teams

    Mar 6, 2026Zihao Deng, Qianhuang Li, Peng Gao +4Multi-Robot CoordinationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Zihao Deng, Qianhuang Li, Donghyun Kim, and Hao Zhang are with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, 01002, USA. · Peng Gao is with North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA. · Maggie Wigness and John Rogers are with the U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Adelphi, MD, 20783, USA.

  19. FORMICA: Decision-Focused Learning for Communication-Free Multi-Robot Task Allocation

    Feb 20, 2026Antonio Lopez, Jack Muirhead, Carlo PinciroliMulti-Robot Task AllocationMulti-Agent Resource Allocation

    Dept. of Robotics Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA 01609, USA

  20. Consensus Based Task Allocation for Angles-Only Local Catalog Maintenance of Satellite Systems

    Feb 18, 2026Harrison Perone, Christopher W. HaysSpace Situational AwarenessMulti-Robot Task Allocation

    Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Student, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 · Research Aerospace Engineer, Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirtland AFB, NM. 87117

  21. MOSAIC: Modular Scalable Autonomy for Intelligent Coordination of Heterogeneous Robotic Teams

    Jan 30, 2026David Oberacker, Julia Richter, Philip Arm +10Multi-Robot SystemsMulti-Robot Exploration

    FZI Forschungszentrum für Informatik, Karlsruhe, Germany · Machine Intelligence and Robotics Lab (MaiRo), Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany · Robotic Systems Lab (RSL), ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland +1

  22. Policy Stability for Measuring Operational Performance in Task Assignment with Time-Windows Under Internal Adversarial Influence

    Nov 7, 2025Roee M. Francos, Daniel Garces, Orhan Eren Akgün +1Vehicle RoutingMulti-Robot Task Allocation

    School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

  23. Census-Based Population Autonomy For Distributed Robotic Teaming

    Nov 4, 2025Tyler M. Paine, Anastasia Bizyaeva, Michael R. BenjaminMulti-Robot CoordinationDistributed Optimization

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA · Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA · Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

  24. HEHA: Bounded Suboptimal Planning for Constrained Routing and Its Use in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Exploration of Unknown Environments

    Oct 5, 2025Longrui Yang, Yiyu Wang, Jingfan Tang +4Multi-Robot ExplorationConstrained Motion Planning

    Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China · Carnegie Mellon University, PA, 15213