  Starbugs are miniaturised robotic devices that position optical fibres over a
telescope's focal plane in parallel operation for high multiplex spectroscopic
surveys. The key advantage of the Starbug positioning system is its potential
to configure fields of hundreds of targets in a few minutes, consistent with
typical detector readout times. Starbugs have been selected as the positioning
technology for the TAIPAN (Transforming Astronomical Imaging surveys through
Polychromatic Analysis of Nebulae) instrument, a prototype for MANIFEST (Many
Instrument Fiber System) on the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope). TAIPAN consists
of a 150-fibre Starbug positioner accessing the 6 degree field-of-view of the
AAO's UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory. For TAIPAN, it is
important to optimise the target allocation and routing algorithms to provide
the fastest configurations times. We present details of the algorithms and
results of the simulated performance.
