Tools of the Trade: A Survey of Various Agent Based Modeling Platforms

Agent Based Modeling (ABM) toolkits are as diverse as the community of people who use them. With so many toolkits available, the choice of which one is best suited for a project is left to word of mouth, past experiences in using particular toolkits and toolkit publicity. This is especially troublesome for projects that require specialization. Rather than using toolkits that are the most publicized but are designed for general projects, using this paper, one will be able to choose a toolkit that already exists and that may be built especially for one's particular domain and specialized needs. In this paper, we examine the entire continuum of agent based toolkits. We characterize each based on 5 important characteristics users consider when choosing a toolkit, and then we categorize the characteristics into user-friendly taxonomies that aid in rapid indexing and easy reference.Agent Based Modeling, Individual Based Model, Multi Agent Systems

Prototypes of productivity tools for the jadescript programming language

Jadescript is an agent-oriented programming language built on top of JADE. So far, the focus of the development of the language was on design choices, on syntax refinements, and on the introduction of expressions and constructs for agent-related abstractions and tasks. In this paper, a proposal to achieve the crucial goal of making Jadescript suitable for professional use is presented. The success of Jadescript, as a solid language to build real-world agent-based software systems, is necessarily related to its effective integration with mainstream development tools. In this paper, some of the productivity tools developed to integrate Jadescript with a mainstream development environment are presented as a way to promote the successful adoption of the language towards the community of JADE users

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Machine Learning And A Workflow Engine For An Agent-Based Structural Health Monitoring System

This thesis reports on work in machine learning and high-performance computing for structural heath monitoring. The data used are acoustic emission signals, and we classify these signals according to source mechanisms, those associated with crack growth being particularly significant. The work reported here is part of a larger project to develop an agent-based structural health monitoring system. The agents are proxies for communication- and computation-intensive techniques and respond to the situation at hand by determining an appropriate constellation of techniques. The techniques thus structured are executed by a workflow engine, which is part of the contribution reported here. It is critical that the system have a repertoire of classifiers with different characteristics so that a combination appropriate for the situation at hand can generally be found. The classifiers are trained using machine-learning techniques, and we report on investigations we conducted on three supervised and two unsupervised learning techniques to determine which techniques are the best to use in a particular situation

Towards a simulation interoperability framework between an agent-based simulator and a BPMN engine using REST protocol

O paradigma atual de um modelo de processo de negócio é que é uma representação de uma sequência de tarefas que atuam sobre um “input” de dados, para produzir uma “output”, visando a produção de um novo serviço ou produto. Embora esta seja uma forma válida de interpretar um processo de negócio, ela não considera em pormenor a influência de fenómenos externos, por exemplo, comportamento humano, comunicação, interações sociais, a cultura organizacional que pode ter um efeito significativo na eficiência um processo de negócio. Como a dinâmica destes fenómenos externos não é linear, eles podem ser interpretados como um sistema complexo, que são sistemas que se comportam de tal forma que não podem ser explicados simplesmente olhando para o comportamento das suas partes individuais. Esta forma holística de pensar sobre os processos de negócio abre as portas à possibilidade de combinar diferentes métodos de simulação para modelar diferentes aspetos que influenciam um processo. A simulação baseada em agentes (ABS) e BPMN são escolhidas como os dois métodos de simulação para estudar o potencial dessa integração em processos de negócio, e a nossa abordagem para os combinar consiste em modelar o comportamento do utilizador em ABS e o próprio processo de negócio utilizando o BPMN. Por fim, a integração entre os dois motores de simulação acontece durante o decurso da simulação através da invocação de APIs usando o protocolo REST, onde os agentes controlam a dinâmica de execução do processo no BPMN. Esta abordagem de integração é validada através da construção de uma experiência, com o objetivo de determinar se os resultados de simulação obtidos são estatisticamente coerentesThe current paradigm of a business process model is that it is a representation of a sequence of tasks that act upon some data input, to produce an output, aiming the production of a new service or product to be delivered from a producer to a customer. Although this is a valid way of thinking, it neglects to consider in enough detail the influence of some phenomenon on inputs, e.g. human behaviour, communication, social interactions, the organisational culture which can have a significant effect on the output delivered by a business process. As the dynamics of these phenomena are non-linear, they can be interpreted as a complex system. This holistic way of thinking about business processes opens the doors to the possibility of combining different simulation methods to model different aspects that influence a process. A BPMN engine and an agent-based simulation (ABS) engine are chosen to serve the basis of our framework. In its conception, we not only consider the technical aspects of the framework but also delve into exploring its management and organizational dimensions, with the intent of facilitating its adoption in enterprises, as a tool to support decision support systems. We analyse how accurate the simulation results can be when using these two tools as well as what considerations need to be considered within organizations

Coordination Of Hierarchical Command And Control Services

The purpose of this program is to show emerging information technologies can significantly improve key areas of tactical operations, resulting in the conversion of software developed under the ATO to existing battlefield systems. One such key area is Information Dissemination and Management (ID&M). The key software that will be developed under the ID&M portion requires a collection of agent-based software services that will collaborate during tactical mission planning and execution

Wireless Sensor Networks And Data Fusion For Structural Health Monitoring Of Aircraft

This thesis discusses an architecture and design of a sensor web to be used for structural health monitoring of an aircraft. Also presented are several prototypes of critical parts of the sensor web. The proposed sensor web will utilize sensor nodes situated throughout the structure. These nodes and one or more workstations will support agents that communicate and collaborate to monitor the health of the structure. Agents can be any internal or external autonomous entity that has direct access to affect a given system. For the purposes of this document, an agent will be defined as an autonomous software resource that has the ability to make decisions for itself based on given tasks and abilities while also collaborating with others to find a feasible answer to a given problem regarding the structural health monitoring system. Once the agents have received relevant data from nodes, they will utilize applications that perform data fusion techniques to classify events and further improve the functionality of the system for more accurate future classifications. Agents will also pass alerts up a self-configuring hierarchy of monitor agents and make them available for review by personnel. This thesis makes use of previous results from applying the Gaia methodology for analysis and design of the multiagent system

A Review of Platforms for the Development of Agent Systems

Agent-based computing is an active field of research with the goal of building autonomous software of hardware entities. This task is often facilitated by the use of dedicated, specialized frameworks. For almost thirty years, many such agent platforms have been developed. Meanwhile, some of them have been abandoned, others continue their development and new platforms are released. This paper presents a up-to-date review of the existing agent platforms and also a historical perspective of this domain. It aims to serve as a reference point for people interested in developing agent systems. This work details the main characteristics of the included agent platforms, together with links to specific projects where they have been used. It distinguishes between the active platforms and those no longer under development or with unclear status. It also classifies the agent platforms as general purpose ones, free or commercial, and specialized ones, which can be used for particular types of applications.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures, 9 tables, 83 reference