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Inter-agent variation is well-known in both the biology and computer science communities as a mechanism for improving task selection and swarm performance for multi-agent systems. Response threshold variation, the most commonly used form of inter-agent variation, desynchronizes agent actions allowing for more targeted agent activation. Recent research using a less common form of variation, termed dynamic response intensity, demonstrates that modeling levels of agent experience or varying physical attributes and using these to allow some agents to perform tasks more efficiently or vigorously, significantly improves swarm goal achievement when used in conjunction with response thresholds. Dynamic intensity values vary within a fixed range as agents activate for tasks. We extend previous work by demonstrating that adding another layer of variation to response intensity, in the form of heterogeneous ranges for response intensity values, provides significant performance improvements when response is probabilistic. Heterogeneous intensity ranges break the coupling that occurs between response thresh- olds and response intensities when the intensity range is homogeneous. The decoupling allows for increased diversity in agent behavior. 

Intelligent robot swarms are increasingly being explored as tools for search and rescue missions. Efficient path planning and robust communication networks are critical elements of completing missions. The focus of this research is to give unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) the ability to self-organize a mesh network that is optimized for area coverage. The UAVs will be able to read the communication strength between themselves and all the UAVs it is connected to using RSSI. The UAVs should be able to adjust their positioning closer to other UAVs if RSSI is below a threshold, and they should also maintain communication as a group if they move together along a search path. Our approach was to use Genetic Algorithms in a simulated environment to achieve multi-node exploration with emphasis on connectivity and swarm spread.