MURDOCH: Publish/Subscribe Task Allocation for Heterogeneous Agents

Brian P. Gerkey, Maja J. Mataric

Abstract: Introduction In this paper, we describe a novel approach to the problem of dynamic task allocation among groups of heterogeneous agents. Specifically , we advocate the use of publish/subscribe messaging, a well-researched ((S 98)) and commercially proven ((TIB97)) message brokering paradigm that is readily applicable to distributed control. We present MURDOCH, an implemented publish-subscribe system, and explain how it can facilitate multi-robot coordination. Publish/Subscribe Messaging At the heart of MURDOCH is an implementation of publish/subscribe messaging, which in turn depends on subject-based addressing. Subject-based addressing is an addressing scheme in which individual messages are addressed by content rather than destination. Publish/subscribe messaging is a messaging paradigm that uses subject-based addressing to divide a network into a loosely-coupled association of anonymous data producers and consumers. A data producer simply tags a message with a subject (or set of subjects) and “publishes” it onto the network; any data consumers who have “subscribed” to that subject (or set of subjects) will automatically receive the message. The goal of publish/subscribe messaging is to enable a loosely-coupled distributed system in which the data producers have no knowledge of the data consumers and vice versa.