Engineering environment-mediated coordination via nature-inspired laws

SAPERE is a general multiagent framework to support the development of self-organizing pervasive computing services. One of the key aspects of the SAPERE approach is to have all interactions between agents take place in an indirect way, via a shared spatial environment. In such environment, a set of nature-inspired coordination laws have been defined to rule the coordination activities of the application agents and promote the provisioning of adaptive and self-organizing services

Infrastructures to Engineer Open Agent Environments by Means of Electronic Institutions

Electronic institutions provide a computational analogue of human institutions to engineer open environments in which agents can interact in an autonomous way while complying with the norms of an institution. The purpose of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, we lightly survey our research on coordination infrastructures for electronic institutions in the last ten years. On the other hand, we highlight the research challenges in environment engineering that we have tackled during this journey as well as promising research paths for future research on the engineering of open environments for multi-agent systems.This paper has been partially funded by the following projects: TIN2012-38876-C02-01, PRAISE (FP7-318770), CollectiveMind (TEC2013-49430-EXP), ACE (Autonomic software engineering for online Cultural Experiences), and the Generalitat of Catalunya (2014 SGR 118)Peer reviewe

Agent Environments for Multi-agent Systems – A Research Roadmap

Ten years ago, researchers in multi-agent systems became more and more aware that agent systems consist of more than only agents. The series of workshops on Environments for Multi-Agent Systems (E4MAS 2004-2006) emerged from this awareness. One of the primary outcomes of this endeavor was a principled understanding that the agent environment should be considered as a primary design abstraction, equally important as the agents. A special issue in JAAMAS 2007 contributed a set of influential papers that define the role of agent environments, describe their engineering, and outline challenges in the field that have been the drivers for numerous follow up research efforts. The goal of this paper is to wrap up what has been achieved in the past 10 years and identify challenges for future research on agent environments. Instead of taking a broad perspective, we focus on three particularly relevant topics of modern software intensive systems: large scale, openness, and humans in the loop. For each topic, we reflect on the challenges outlined 10 years ago, present an example application that highlights the current trends, and from that outline challenges for the future. We conclude with a roadmap on how the different challenges could be tackled. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.Peer reviewe

Crenças de grupo como instrumento de formação da reputação: uma arquitetura baseada em agentes e artefatos

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Automação e Sistemas, Florianópolis, 2011A qualidade das interações entre agentes é um fator determinante na eficiência de um sistema multiagente. Uma importante ferramenta utilizada para melhorar a qualidade das interações é a reputação. Dentre os diversos modelos para a reputação, o modelo ForTrust destaca-se por sua excelente fundamentação teórica. Este modelo ainda não tem uma validação feita por meio de implementação e experimentação, carecendo inclusive de uma arquitetura computacional que o viabilize. Nesta direção, o presente trabalho apresenta uma arquitetura de implementação para o ForTrust usando a abordagem de Agentes e Artefatos. Nela, artefatos são estruturas passivas e orientadas a funções compartilhadas por um grupo de agentes como mecanismo de cooperação e coordenação na formação da reputação. A proposta de tais artefatos é demonstrada em alguns estudos de caso, em especial no auxílio dos patrulheiros da Wikipédia. A arquitetura apresentada neste trabalho se mostra de fácil utilização uma vez que obedece a uma série de requisitos específicos observados. Seu funcionamento é corroborado pela sua implementação no auxílio aos patrulheiros da Wikipédia

Engineering Self-Adaptive Collective Processes for Cyber-Physical Ecosystems

The pervasiveness of computing and networking is creating significant opportunities for building valuable socio-technical systems. However, the scale, density, heterogeneity, interdependence, and QoS constraints of many target systems pose severe operational and engineering challenges. Beyond individual smart devices, cyber-physical collectives can provide services or solve complex problems by leveraging a “system effect” while coordinating and adapting to context or environment change. Understanding and building systems exhibiting collective intelligence and autonomic capabilities represent a prominent research goal, partly covered, e.g., by the field of collective adaptive systems. Therefore, drawing inspiration from and building on the long-time research activity on coordination, multi-agent systems, autonomic/self-* systems, spatial computing, and especially on the recent aggregate computing paradigm, this thesis investigates concepts, methods, and tools for the engineering of possibly large-scale, heterogeneous ensembles of situated components that should be able to operate, adapt and self-organise in a decentralised fashion. The primary contribution of this thesis consists of four main parts. First, we define and implement an aggregate programming language (ScaFi), internal to the mainstream Scala programming language, for describing collective adaptive behaviour, based on field calculi. Second, we conceive of a “dynamic collective computation” abstraction, also called aggregate process, formalised by an extension to the field calculus, and implemented in ScaFi. Third, we characterise and provide a proof-of-concept implementation of a middleware for aggregate computing that enables the development of aggregate systems according to multiple architectural styles. Fourth, we apply and evaluate aggregate computing techniques to edge computing scenarios, and characterise a design pattern, called Self-organising Coordination Regions (SCR), that supports adjustable, decentralised decision-making and activity in dynamic environments.Con lo sviluppo di informatica e intelligenza artificiale, la diffusione pervasiva di device computazionali e la crescente interconnessione tra elementi fisici e digitali, emergono innumerevoli opportunità per la costruzione di sistemi socio-tecnici di nuova generazione. Tuttavia, l'ingegneria di tali sistemi presenta notevoli sfide, data la loro complessità—si pensi ai livelli, scale, eterogeneità, e interdipendenze coinvolti. Oltre a dispositivi smart individuali, collettivi cyber-fisici possono fornire servizi o risolvere problemi complessi con un “effetto sistema” che emerge dalla coordinazione e l'adattamento di componenti fra loro, l'ambiente e il contesto. Comprendere e costruire sistemi in grado di esibire intelligenza collettiva e capacità autonomiche è un importante problema di ricerca studiato, ad esempio, nel campo dei sistemi collettivi adattativi. Perciò, traendo ispirazione e partendo dall'attività di ricerca su coordinazione, sistemi multiagente e self-*, modelli di computazione spazio-temporali e, specialmente, sul recente paradigma di programmazione aggregata, questa tesi tratta concetti, metodi, e strumenti per l'ingegneria di ensemble di elementi situati eterogenei che devono essere in grado di lavorare, adattarsi, e auto-organizzarsi in modo decentralizzato. Il contributo di questa tesi consiste in quattro parti principali. In primo luogo, viene definito e implementato un linguaggio di programmazione aggregata (ScaFi), interno al linguaggio Scala, per descrivere comportamenti collettivi e adattativi secondo l'approccio dei campi computazionali. In secondo luogo, si propone e caratterizza l'astrazione di processo aggregato per rappresentare computazioni collettive dinamiche concorrenti, formalizzata come estensione al field calculus e implementata in ScaFi. Inoltre, si analizza e implementa un prototipo di middleware per sistemi aggregati, in grado di supportare più stili architetturali. Infine, si applicano e valutano tecniche di programmazione aggregata in scenari di edge computing, e si propone un pattern, Self-Organising Coordination Regions, per supportare, in modo decentralizzato, attività decisionali e di regolazione in ambienti dinamici

Applying agent technology to constructing flexible monitoring systems in process automation

The dissertation studies the application of agent technology to process automation monitoring and other domain specific functions. Motivation for the research work derives from the development of industrial production and process automation, and thereby the work load of operating personnel in charge of these large-scale processes has become more complex and difficult to handle. At the same time, the information technology infrastructure in process automation domain has developed ready to accept and utilise novel software engineering solutions. Agent technology is a new programming paradigm which has attractive properties like autonomy, flexibility and a possibility to distribute functions. In addition, agent technology offers a systematic methodology for designing goal based operations. This enables parts of the monitoring tasks to be delegated to the system. In this research, new agent system architecture is introduced. The architecture specifies a structure that enables the use of agents in the process monitoring domain. In addition, an introductory internal layered design of an agent aiming to combine Semantic Web and agent technologies is presented. The developed agent architecture is used in conjunction with the systematic agent design methodology to construct and implement four test cases. Each case has industrially motivated interest and illustrates various aspects of monitoring functionalities. These tests provide evidence that by utilising agent technology it is possible to develop new monitoring features for process operators, otherwise infeasible as such within current process automation systems. As a result of the research work, it can be stated that agent technology is a suited methodology to realise monitoring functionalities in process automation. It is also shown, that by applying solutions gained from the agent technology research, it is possible to define an architecture that enables to utilise the properties offered by agents in process automation environment. The proposed agent architecture supports features that are of generic interest in monitoring tasks. The developed architecture and research findings provide ground to import novel software engineering solutions to process automation monitoring

Component-based software architectures and multi-agent systems: mutual and complementary contributions for supporting software development

Dans cette thèse, nous explorons les diverses contributions que les systèmes multi-agents (SMA) et les architectures à base de composants (CBSA) peuvent mutuellement et complémentairement s'apporter l'un à l'autre. Dans un premier temps, nous définissons, illustrons, analysons et discutons une méthodologie du développement des SMA, un modèle de composants (SpeAD), un langage de description d'architecture (SpeADL) et une méthode de conception (SpEArAF) qui facilitent et guident la description et l'implémentation des SMA. Cette réponse complète au développement des SMA est assistée par un outil (MAY) et a été appliquée à un grand nombre d'applications. Dans un second temps, nous explorons à travers divers expériences l'aide que peuvent apporter les SMA auto-adaptatif aux CBSA. Les agents et leur réorganisation continuelle jouent à la fois le rôle de moteur de la construction et de l'adaptation dynamique de l'architecture, mais aussi du conteneur qui connecte ses éléments en pratique.In this thesis, we explore the various aspects of the mutual and complementary contributions that multi-agent systems (MASs) and component-based software architectures (CBSAs) can provide to each other. On one hand, we define, illustrate, analyse and discuss an architecture-oriented methodology of MAS development, a component model (SpeAD), an architectural description language (SpeADL) and a design method (SpEArAF) that ease and guide the description and the implementation of MASs. This complete answer to MAS development is supported by a tool (MAY) and has been applied to many applications. On the other hand, we explore through various experiments how self-adaptive MASs can be used to support CBSAs. The agents and their continuous reorganisation act both as the engine of the construction and of the dynamic adaptation of the architecture, and as the runtime container that practically connects its elements together

Coordination Issues in Complex Socio-technical Systems: Self-organisation of Knowledge in MoK

The thesis proposes the Molecules of Knowledge (MoK) model for self-organisation of knowledge in knowledge-intensive socio-technical systems. The main contribution is the conception, definition, design, and implementation of the MoK model. The model is based on a chemical metaphor for self-organising coordination, in which coordination laws are interpreted as artificial chemical reactions ruling evolution of the molecules of knowledge living in the system (the information chunks), indirectly coordinating the users working with them. In turn, users may implicitly affect system behaviour with their interactions, according to the cognitive theory of behavioural implicit communication, integrated in MoK. The theory states that any interaction conveys tacit messages that can be suitably interpreted by the coordination model to better support users' workflows. Design and implementation of the MoK model required two other contributions: conception, design, and tuning of the artificial chemical reactions with custom kinetic rates, playing the role of the coordination laws, and development of an infrastructure supporting situated coordination, both in time, space, and w.r.t. the environment, along with a dedicated coordination language