Advances in infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems

In the last few years, information system technologies have focused on solving challenges in order to develop distributed applications. Distributed systems can be viewed as collections of service-provider and ser vice-consumer components interlinked by dynamically defined workflows (Luck and McBurney 2008).Alberola Oltra, JM.; Botti Navarro, VJ.; Such Aparicio, JM. (2014). Advances in infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems. Information Systems Frontiers. 16:163-167. doi:10.1007/s10796-014-9493-6S16316716Alberola, J. M., Búrdalo, L., Julián, V., Terrasa, A., & García-Fornes, A. (2014). An adaptive framework for monitoring agent organizations. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9478-x .Alfonso, B., Botti, V., Garrido, A., & Giret, A. (2014). A MAS-based infrastructure for negotiation and its application to a water-right market. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9443-8 .Andrighetto, G., Castelfranchi, C., Mayor, E., McBreen, J., López-Sánchez, M., & Parsons, S. (2013). (Social) norm dynamics. In G. Andrighetto, G. Governatori, P. Noriega, & L. W. van der Torre (Eds.), Normative multi-agent systems (pp. 135–170). Dagstuhl: Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik.Baarslag, T., Fujita, K., Gerding, E. H., Hindriks, K., Ito, T., Jennings, N. R., et al. (2013). Evaluating practical negotiating agents: results and analysis of the 2011 international competition. Artificial Intelligence, 198, 73–103.Boissier, O., Bordini, R. H., Hübner, J. F., Ricci, A., & Santi, A. (2013). Multi-agent oriented programming with JaCaMo. Science of Computer Programming, 78(6), 747–761.Campos, J., Esteva, M., López-Sánchez, M., Morales, J., & Salamó, M. (2011). Organisational adaptation of multi-agent systems in a peer-to-peer scenario. Computing, 91(2), 169–215.Carrera, A., Iglesias, C. A., & Garijo, M. (2014). Beast methodology: an agile testing methodology for multi-agent systems based on behaviour driven development. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9438-5 .Criado, N., Such, J. M., & Botti, V. (2014). Norm reasoning services. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9444-7 .Del Val, E., Rebollo, M., & Botti, V. (2014). Enhancing decentralized service discovery in open service-oriented multi-agent systems. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 28(1), 1–30.Denti, E., Omicini, A., & Ricci, A. (2002). Coordination tools for MAS development and deployment. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 16(9–10), 721–752.Dignum, V., & Dignum, F. (2012). A logic of agent organizations. Logic Journal of IGPL, 20(1), 283–316.Ferber, J., & Gutknecht, O. (1998). A meta-model for the analysis and design of organizations in multi-agent systems. In Multi agent systems. Proceedings. International Conference on (pp. 128–135). IEEE.Fogués, R. L., Such, J. M., Espinosa, A., & Garcia-Fornes, A. (2014). BFF: a tool for eliciting tie strength and user communities in social networking services. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9453-6 .Garcia, E., Giret, A., & Botti, V. (2011). Evaluating software engineering techniques for developing complex systems with multiagent approaches. Information and Software Technology, 53(5), 494–506.Garcia-Fornes, A., Hübner, J., Omicini, A., Rodriguez-Aguilar, J., & Botti, V. (2011). Infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems for the new generation of distributed systems. Engineering Applications of Articial Intelligence, 24(7), 1095–1097.Jennings, N., Faratin, P., Lomuscio, A., Parsons, S., Sierra, C., & Wooldridge, M. (2001). Automated negotiation: prospects, methods and challenges. International Journal of Group Decision and Negotiation, 10(2), 199–215.Jung, Y., Kim, M., Masoumzadeh, A., & Joshi, J. B. (2012). 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Challenges for adaptation in agent societies

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOIAdaptation in multiagent systems societies provides a paradigm for allowing these societies to change dynamically in order to satisfy the current requirements of the system. This support is especially required for the next generation of systems that focus on open, dynamic, and adaptive applications. In this paper, we analyze the current state of the art regarding approaches that tackle the adaptation issue in these agent societies. We survey the most relevant works up to now in order to highlight the most remarkable features according to what they support and how this support is provided. In order to compare these approaches, we also identify different characteristics of the adaptation process that are grouped in different phases. Finally, we discuss some of the most important considerations about the analyzed approaches, and we provide some interesting guidelines as open issues that should be required in future developments.This work has been partially supported by CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 under grant CSD2007-00022, the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research IC0801 AT, and projects TIN2009-13839-C03-01 and TIN2011-27652-C03-01.Alberola Oltra, JM.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; García-Fornes, A. (2014). Challenges for adaptation in agent societies. Knowledge and Information Systems. 38(1):1-34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-012-0565-yS134381Aamodt A, Plaza E (1994) Case-based reasoning; foundational issues, methodological variations, and system approaches. AI Commun 7(1):39–59Abdallah S, Lesser V (2007) Multiagent reinforcement learning and self-organization in a network of agents. 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Simulation of power distribution management system using OMACS metamodel

Master of ScienceDepartment of Computing and Information SciencesScott A. DeLoachDesigning and implementing large, complex and distributed systems using semi-autonomous agents that can reorganize and adapt themselves by cooperating with one another represents the future of software systems. This project concentrates on analyzing, designing and simulating such a system using the Organization Model for Adaptive Computational Systems (OMACS) metamodel. OMACS provides a framework for developing multiagent based systems that can adapt themselves to changes in the environment. Design of OMACS ensures the system will be highly robust and adaptive. In this project, we implement a simulator that models the adaptability of agents in a Power Distribution Management (PDM) system. The project specifies a top-down approach to break down the goals of the PDM system and to design the functional role of each agent involved in the system. It defines the different roles in the organization and the various capabilities possessed by the agents. All the assignments in PDM system are based on these factors. The project gives two different approaches for assigning the agents to the goals they are capable of achieving. It also analyzes the time complexity and the efficiency of agent assignments in various scenarios to understand the effectiveness of agent reorganization

Organization of Multi-Agent Systems: An Overview

In complex, open, and heterogeneous environments, agents must be able to reorganize towards the most appropriate organizations to adapt unpredictable environment changes within Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Types of reorganization can be seen from two different levels. The individual agents level (micro-level) in which an agent changes its behaviors and interactions with other agents to adapt its local environment. And the organizational level (macro-level) in which the whole system changes it structure by adding or removing agents. This chapter is dedicated to overview different aspects of what is called MAS Organization including its motivations, paradigms, models, and techniques adopted for statically or dynamically organizing agents in MAS.Comment: 12 page

Modeling and Control of Multi-Agent Systems

Biology has brought much enlightenment to the development of human technology, for example, the collective behaviors inspired engineering applications (such as, the unmanned vehicle formation, the satellite alignment etc.), and even the study of network theory. This discipline has made a significant contribution to technology development. As a prospective solution to the current issues, multi-agent control has become a popular research topic in recent decades. The traditional control methods based on the classical models are suffering from high sensitivity to model accuracy, computational complexity, low fault tolerance, and weakness in real-time performance. Therefore, the advantages of multi-agent control are obvious: 1) easy maintenance and expansion of the system by repairing, replacing or adding agents; 2) high fault tolerance and robustness, ability to function properly even when some agents fail; 3) low requirement of distributed controllers, which brings low cost and large flexibility. In this thesis, I investigate problems on modeling and control of multi-agent systems. In particular, I propose a three-dimensional model to simulate collective behavior under high-speed conditions. I design an improved adaptive-velocity strategy and weighted strategy to enhance the performance of the multi-agent system. Moreover, I analyze the performance from the aspects of energy and parameter space. I show how the model works and its advantages compared to existing models. Then, I study the design of distributed controllers for multi-agent systems. Output regulation with input saturation and nonlinear flocking problems are studied with the assumption of a heterogeneous switching topology. The output regulation problem is solved via low gain state feedback and its validity verified by theoretical study. Then, the flocking problem with heterogeneous nonlinear dynamics is solved. A connectivity-preserving algorithm and potential function are designed to ensure the controllability of the multi-agent system through the dynamic process. Overall, this thesis provides examples of how to analyze and manipulate multi-agent systems. It offers promising solutions to solve physical multi-agent modeling and control problems and provides ideas for bio-inspired engineering and artificial intelligent control for multi-agent systems

Towards adaptive multi-robot systems: self-organization and self-adaptation

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The development of complex systems ensembles that operate in uncertain environments is a major challenge. The reason for this is that system designers are not able to fully specify the system during specification and development and before it is being deployed. Natural swarm systems enjoy similar characteristics, yet, being self-adaptive and being able to self-organize, these systems show beneficial emergent behaviour. Similar concepts can be extremely helpful for artificial systems, especially when it comes to multi-robot scenarios, which require such solution in order to be applicable to highly uncertain real world application. In this article, we present a comprehensive overview over state-of-the-art solutions in emergent systems, self-organization, self-adaptation, and robotics. We discuss these approaches in the light of a framework for multi-robot systems and identify similarities, differences missing links and open gaps that have to be addressed in order to make this framework possible

Separating Agent-Functioning and Inter-Agent Coordination by Activated Modules: The DECOMAS Architecture

The embedding of self-organizing inter-agent processes in distributed software applications enables the decentralized coordination system elements, solely based on concerted, localized interactions. The separation and encapsulation of the activities that are conceptually related to the coordination, is a crucial concern for systematic development practices in order to prepare the reuse and systematic integration of coordination processes in software systems. Here, we discuss a programming model that is based on the externalization of processes prescriptions and their embedding in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). One fundamental design concern for a corresponding execution middleware is the minimal-invasive augmentation of the activities that affect coordination. This design challenge is approached by the activation of agent modules. Modules are converted to software elements that reason about and modify their host agent. We discuss and formalize this extension within the context of a generic coordination architecture and exemplify the proposed programming model with the decentralized management of (web) service infrastructures

Distributed Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Control of Uncertain Multi-Agent Systems

This paper presents an adaptive fault-tolerant control (FTC) scheme for a class of nonlinear uncertain multi-agent systems. A local FTC scheme is designed for each agent using local measurements and suitable information exchanged between neighboring agents. Each local FTC scheme consists of a fault diagnosis module and a reconfigurable controller module comprised of a baseline controller and two adaptive fault-tolerant controllers activated after fault detection and after fault isolation, respectively. Under certain assumptions, the closed-loop system's stability and leader-follower consensus properties are rigorously established under different modes of the FTC system, including the time-period before possible fault detection, between fault detection and possible isolation, and after fault isolation

The Simulation Model Partitioning Problem: an Adaptive Solution Based on Self-Clustering (Extended Version)

This paper is about partitioning in parallel and distributed simulation. That means decomposing the simulation model into a numberof components and to properly allocate them on the execution units. An adaptive solution based on self-clustering, that considers both communication reduction and computational load-balancing, is proposed. The implementation of the proposed mechanism is tested using a simulation model that is challenging both in terms of structure and dynamicity. Various configurations of the simulation model and the execution environment have been considered. The obtained performance results are analyzed using a reference cost model. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach is promising and that it can reduce the simulation execution time in both parallel and distributed architectures