Agent collaboration in a multi-agent-system for analysis and optimization of mechanical engineering parts

In mechanical engineering, designers have to review a designed artefact iteratively with different domain experts, e.g. from manufacturing, to avoid later changes and find a robust, optimized design. To support the designer, knowledge-based engineering offers a set of approaches and techniques that formalize and implement engineering knowledge into generic product models or decision support systems. An implementation which satisfies especially the concurrent nature of today's design processes and allow for multi-objective decision-making is multi-agent systems. Such systems consist of entities that are capable of autonomous action, interact intelligently with their environment, communicate and collaborate. In this paper, such a multi-agent system is discussed as extension for a computer-aided design software where the agents take the role of domain experts, like e.g. manufacturing technologists and make suggestions for the optimization of the design of mechanical engineering parts. A focal point is set on the collaboration concept of the single agents. Therefore, the paper proposes the use of an action-item-list as central information and knowledge sharing platform. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Application of Decentralized and Self-Regulating Knowledge Bases for Assembly Design Automation

During product development, changes to parts that are already built into assemblies usually lead to the need to check the function and consistency of the assembly. This procedure is very time-consuming and has to be performed again for each change. In this paper, an approach is presented in which the individual parts are represented as agents that adapt themselves to new conditions. The agents are combined in a multi-agent system (MAS) and interact via communication over messages. For this purpose, a methodical procedure for the development of the MAS and the implementation in a CAD development environment is presented. The validation of the MAS is carried out on the application example of a gearbox

Choreographing agent encounters in the Semantic Web using rules

Abstract. In order for automated agent-based e-Commerce transactions to blossom, well-defined, analyzable and easily customizable interaction protocols or choreographies of involved parties need to be developed. Although, several domaindepended protocols have already been developed, efficient methodologies and technologies for facilitating the definition, deployment, reuse and maintenance of interaction protocols should be developed. This paper proposes a rule-based, reusable, analyzable and easily comprehensible by the user choreography definition methodology, called K-SWAN. Τhe proposed choreography scheme separates the definition of the agent shared interaction protocol from the private agent interaction strategy and enables agents to choose the appropriate protocol for the transaction, from a library of re-usable interaction protocols, and automatically combine it with their personal strategy, from a private library, by using SW technologies for both. Complying with K-SWAN methodology will let agents participate seamlessly in different interaction processes and/or modify their behavior with a minimal programming effort. Finally, this paper presents the integration of the K-SWAN methodology into EMERALD, a multi-agent knowledge-based framework based on SW standards, which maximizes reusability and interoperability of behavior between agents

Implementing Rule-Based Automated Price Negotiation in an Agent System

The idea of automating e-commerce transactions attracts a lot of interest among researchers and IT practitioners, and multi-agent systems are claimed to be one of promising software technologies for achieving this goal. Since price negotiations are one of crucial aspects of e-commerce transactions, in this paper we present a rule-based implementation of automated price negotiations utilized in a multi-agent system that models an e-commerce environment. We start by summarizing state-of-the-art in rule-based approaches to automated negotiations. We follow with a brief description of the conceptual architecture of our system and a simplified scenario that involves multiple buyer agents participating in multiple English auctions performed in parallel. A detailed discussion of the design and implementation of price negotiations, using JADE and JESS, and presentation of sample experiments complete the paper