Design and implementation of a multi-agent opportunistic grid computing platform

Opportunistic Grid Computing involves joining idle computing resources in enterprises into a converged high performance commodity infrastructure. The research described in this dissertation investigates the viability of public resource computing in offering a plethora of possibilities through seamless access to shared compute and storage resources. The research proposes and conceptualizes the Multi-Agent Opportunistic Grid (MAOG) solution in an Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) initiative to address some limitations prevalent in traditional distributed system implementations. Proof-of-concept software components based on JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) validated Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) as an important tool for provisioning of Opportunistic Grid Computing platforms. Exploration of agent technologies within the research context identified two key components which improve access to extended computer capabilities. The first component is a Mobile Agent (MA) compute component in which a group of agents interact to pool shared processor cycles. The compute component integrates dynamic resource identification and allocation strategies by incorporating the Contract Net Protocol (CNP) and rule based reasoning concepts. The second service is a MAS based storage component realized through disk mirroring and Google file-system’s chunking with atomic append storage techniques. This research provides a candidate Opportunistic Grid Computing platform design and implementation through the use of MAS. Experiments conducted validated the design and implementation of the compute and storage services. From results, support for processing user applications; resource identification and allocation; and rule based reasoning validated the MA compute component. A MAS based file-system that implements chunking optimizations was considered to be optimum based on evaluations. The findings from the undertaken experiments also validated the functional adequacy of the implementation, and show the suitability of MAS for provisioning of robust, autonomous, and intelligent platforms. The context of this research, ICT4D, provides a solution to optimizing and increasing the utilization of computing resources that are usually idle in these contexts

Combining MAS and P2P Systems: The Agent Trees Multi-Agent System (ATMAS)

The seamless retrieval of information distributed across networks has been one of the key goals of many systems. Early solutions involved the use of single static agents which would retrieve the unfiltered data and then process it. However, this was deemed costly and inefficient in terms of the bandwidth since complete files need to be downloaded when only a single value is often all that is required. As a result, mobile agents were developed to filter the data in situ before returning it to the user. However, mobile agents have their own associated problems, namely security and control. The Agent Trees Multi-Agent System (AT-MAS) has been developed to provide the remote processing and filtering capabilities but without the need for mobile code. It is implemented as a Peer to Peer (P2P) network of static intelligent cooperating agents, each of which control one or more data sources. This dissertation describes the two key technologies have directly influenced the design of ATMAS, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems and Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). P2P systems are conceptually simple, but limited in power, whereas MAS are significantly more complex but correspondingly more powerful. The resulting system exhibits the power of traditional MAS systems while retaining the simplicity of P2P systems. The dissertation describes the system in detail and analyses its performance

Multi-Agent Systems

This Special Issue ""Multi-Agent Systems"" gathers original research articles reporting results on the steadily growing area of agent-oriented computing and multi-agent systems technologies. After more than 20 years of academic research on multi-agent systems (MASs), in fact, agent-oriented models and technologies have been promoted as the most suitable candidates for the design and development of distributed and intelligent applications in complex and dynamic environments. With respect to both their quality and range, the papers in this Special Issue already represent a meaningful sample of the most recent advancements in the field of agent-oriented models and technologies. In particular, the 17 contributions cover agent-based modeling and simulation, situated multi-agent systems, socio-technical multi-agent systems, and semantic technologies applied to multi-agent systems. In fact, it is surprising to witness how such a limited portion of MAS research already highlights the most relevant usage of agent-based models and technologies, as well as their most appreciated characteristics. We are thus confident that the readers of Applied Sciences will be able to appreciate the growing role that MASs will play in the design and development of the next generation of complex intelligent systems. This Special Issue has been converted into a yearly series, for which a new call for papers is already available at the Applied Sciences journal’s website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Multi-Agent_Systems_2019

Coalition Formation under Uncertainty

Many multiagent systems require allocation of agents to tasks in order to ensure successful task execution. Most systems that perform this allocation assume that the quantity of agents needed for a task is known beforehand. Coalition formation approaches relax this assumption, allowing multiple agents to be dynamically assigned. Unfortunately, many current approaches to coalition formation lack provisions for uncertainty. This prevents application of coalition formation techniques to complex domains, such as real-world robotic systems and agent domains where full state knowledge is not available. Those that do handle uncertainty have no ability to handle dynamic addition or removal of agents from the collective and they constrain the environment to limit the sources of uncertainty. A modeling approach and algorithm for coalition formation is presented that decreases the collective\u27s dependence on knowing agent types. The agent modeling approach enforces stability, allows for arbitrary expansion of the collective, and serves as a basis for calculation of individual coalition payoffs. It explicitly captures uncertainty in agent type and allows uncertainty in coalition value and agent cost, and no agent in the collective is required to perfectly know another agents type. The modeling approach is incorporated into a two part algorithm to generate, evaluate, and join stable coalitions for task execution. A comparison with a prior approach designed to handle uncertainty in agent type shows that the protocol not only provides greater flexibility, but also handles uncertainty on a greater scale. Additional results show the application of the approach to real-world robotics and demonstrate the algorithm\u27s scalability. This provides a framework well suited to decentralized task allocation in general collectives

Instantaneous multi-sensor task allocation in static and dynamic environments

A sensor network often consists of a large number of sensing devices of different types. Upon deployment in the field, these sensing devices form an ad hoc network using wireless links or cables to communicate with each other. Sensor networks are increasingly used to support emergency responders in the field usually requiring many sensing tasks to be supported at the same time. By a sensing task we mean any job that requires some amount of sensing resources to be accomplished such as localizing persons in need of help or detecting an event. Tasks might share the usage of a sensor, but more often compete to exclusively control it because of the limited number of sensors and overlapping needs with other tasks. Sensors are in fact scarce and in high demand. In such cases, it might not be possible to satisfy the requirements of all tasks using available sensors. Therefore, the fundamental question to answer is: “Which sensor should be allocated to which task?", which summarizes the Multi-Sensor Task Allocation (MSTA) problem. We focus on a particular MSTA instance where the environment does not provide enough information to plan for future allocations constraining us to perform instantaneous allocation. We look at this problem in both static setting, where all task requests from emergency responders arrive at once, and dynamic setting, where tasks arrive and depart over time. We provide novel solutions based on centralized and distributed approaches. We evaluate their performance using mainly simulations on randomly generated problem instances; moreover, for the dynamic setting, we consider also feasibility of deploying part of the distributed allocation system on user mobile devices. Our solutions scale well with different number of task requests and manage to improve the utility of the network, prioritizing the most important tasks.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation

Instantaneous multi-sensor task allocation in static and dynamic environments

A sensor network often consists of a large number of sensing devices of different types. Upon deployment in the field, these sensing devices form an ad hoc network using wireless links or cables to communicate with each other. Sensor networks are increasingly used to support emergency responders in the field usually requiring many sensing tasks to be supported at the same time. By a sensing task we mean any job that requires some amount of sensing resources to be accomplished such as localizing persons in need of help or detecting an event. Tasks might share the usage of a sensor, but more often compete to exclusively control it because of the limited number of sensors and overlapping needs with other tasks. Sensors are in fact scarce and in high demand. In such cases, it might not be possible to satisfy the requirements of all tasks using available sensors. Therefore, the fundamental question to answer is: “Which sensor should be allocated to which task?", which summarizes the Multi-Sensor Task Allocation (MSTA) problem. We focus on a particular MSTA instance where the environment does not provide enough information to plan for future allocations constraining us to perform instantaneous allocation. We look at this problem in both static setting, where all task requests from emergency responders arrive at once, and dynamic setting, where tasks arrive and depart over time. We provide novel solutions based on centralized and distributed approaches. We evaluate their performance using mainly simulations on randomly generated problem instances; moreover, for the dynamic setting, we consider also feasibility of deploying part of the distributed allocation system on user mobile devices. Our solutions scale well with different number of task requests and manage to improve the utility of the network, prioritizing the most important tasks

Design and implementation of a multi-agent opportunistic grid computing platform

Opportunistic Grid Computing involves joining idle computing resources in enterprises into a converged high performance commodity infrastructure. The research described in this dissertation investigates the viability of public resource computing in offering a plethora of possibilities through seamless access to shared compute and storage resources. The research proposes and conceptualizes the Multi-Agent Opportunistic Grid (MAOG) solution in an Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) initiative to address some limitations prevalent in traditional distributed system implementations. Proof-of-concept software components based on JADE (Java Agent Development Framework) validated Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) as an important tool for provisioning of Opportunistic Grid Computing platforms. Exploration of agent technologies within the research context identified two key components which improve access to extended computer capabilities. The first component is a Mobile Agent (MA) compute component in which a group of agents interact to pool shared processor cycles. The compute component integrates dynamic resource identification and allocation strategies by incorporating the Contract Net Protocol (CNP) and rule based reasoning concepts. The second service is a MAS based storage component realized through disk mirroring and Google file-system’s chunking with atomic append storage techniques. This research provides a candidate Opportunistic Grid Computing platform design and implementation through the use of MAS. Experiments conducted validated the design and implementation of the compute and storage services. From results, support for processing user applications; resource identification and allocation; and rule based reasoning validated the MA compute component. A MAS based file-system that implements chunking optimizations was considered to be optimum based on evaluations. The findings from the undertaken experiments also validated the functional adequacy of the implementation, and show the suitability of MAS for provisioning of robust, autonomous, and intelligent platforms. The context of this research, ICT4D, provides a solution to optimizing and increasing the utilization of computing resources that are usually idle in these contexts