{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,19]],"date-time":"2025-10-19T15:36:58Z","timestamp":1760888218577,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":18,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2008,3,28]],"date-time":"2008-03-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1206662400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2008,3,28]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to present a novel approach to coordination of multi\u2010agent teams, and in particular multi\u2010robot teams. The new approach is based on models of organisational sociology, namely the concept of social networks. The social relationships used in the model that is presented in this paper are trust and kinship relationships, but modified for use in heterogeneous multi\u2010robot teams.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>The coordination of a robot team is achieved through task allocation. The proposed task allocation mechanism was tested in the multi\u2010robot team task allocation simulation.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>The social networks\u2010based task allocation algorithm has performed according to expectations and the obtained results are very promising. Some intriguing similarities with higher mammalian societies were observed and they are discussed in this paper. The social networks\u2010based approach also exhibited the ability to learn and store information using social networks.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The research focused on simulated environments and further research is envisaged in the physical environments to confirm the applicability of the presented approach.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>In this paper, the proposed coordination was applied to simulated multi\u2010robot teams. It is important to note that the proposed coordination model is not robot specific, but can also be applied to almost any multi\u2010agent system without major modifications.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>The paper emphasizes applicability of considering multi\u2010robot teams as socially embodied agents. It also presents a novel and efficient approach to task allocation.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/17563780810857158","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2008,4,12]],"date-time":"2008-04-12T07:13:34Z","timestamp":1207984414000},"page":"110-127","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Social networks in simulated multi\u2010robot environment"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"1","author":[{"given":"Daniel","family":"Rodi\u0107","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Andries P.","family":"Engelbrecht","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022020620344300000_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bowman, R.S. and Hexmoor, H. (2005), \u201cAgent collaboration and social networks\u201d, Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi\u2010Agent Systems, April, pp. 211\u20104.","DOI":"10.1109\/KIMAS.2005.1427082"},{"key":"key2022020620344300000_b2","unstructured":"Collins, R. 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