How to design robot swarms for real-world use?
Designing robot swarms: a puzzle, a problem, and a mess
This paper discusses the increasing complexity of designing robot swarms, using the framework of puzzle, problem, and mess. A "puzzle" is designing rules for basic collective behaviors (e.g., aggregation). A "problem" is automatically designing and optimizing these rules for specific tasks. The "mess" is deploying large-scale swarms in the real world, dealing with environmental interactions, other agents (including humans), safety, security, ethics, and regulations.
For LLM-based multi-agent systems, this translates to: starting with basic agent interactions (puzzle), moving towards automated design and optimization of agent behaviors for given tasks (problem), and ultimately tackling real-world deployment with its complex social and environmental considerations (mess). Key relevant concepts include: automating design, lifelong learning, distributed situational awareness, human-agent interaction, safety/security, and ethical implications.