ORCID Number
0000-0002-4507-3081
Date of Award
Spring 2026
Access Type
Dissertation - Open Access
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Department
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Committee Chair
Bryan C. Watson
Committee Chair Email
watsonb3@erau.edu
First Committee Member
M. Ilhan Akbas
First Committee Member Email
akbasm@erau.edu
Second Committee Member
Subhradeep Roy
Second Committee Member Email
roys5@erau.edu
Third Committee Member
Shafika Moni
Third Committee Member Email
monis@erau.edu
Fourth Committee Member
Corraine McNeill
Fourth Committee Member Email
mcneillc@morningside.edu
College Dean
James W. Gregory
Abstract
As Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) become increasingly involved in every aspect of everyday life the need to maintain reliability and resilience within these systems grows. However, in equal measure bad actors wishing to maliciously control or alter these systems are growing in both scale and capability. Thus, there is a present need for control schemes and agent behaviors that provide security against these threats while also avoiding large degradation in system performance as a tradeoff. Current research has covered a wide breadth of avenues and strategies that provide measurable resilience to faulted agents. However, these strategies often require group consensus, specialized observer agents, or identification of faulted agents, which can weaken overall system performance. When looking for efficient solutions to engineering problems one possible solution space is in the form of Biologically Inspired Design (BID), or the study of nature to apply to engineering. Often BID provides unique and more efficient ways of approaching engineering problems. As such, this dissertation utilizes BID with a focus on insects, which are analogous to a MAS context, to improve system resilience to contagious faults.
After identifying strategies insects use to resist disease and infection five MAS behaviors for individual agents were created. These strategies were then tested in multiple simulation environments and physical robotic swarms. Data from these tests show that these biological strategies are often far superior to the control in both contagious fault resilience and task completion.
Scholarly Commons Citation
Hand, James E., "Insect Inspired Behavioral Strategies for Improving Multi-Agent System Resilience in the Presence of Contagious Faults" (2026). Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses. 968.
https://commons.erau.edu/edt/968
Signed GS9 Acceptance Form
Included in
Controls and Control Theory Commons, Other Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons, Other Engineering Commons, Systems and Communications Commons, Systems Engineering Commons
