8,756 research outputs found
Multi-level agent-based modeling - A literature survey
During last decade, multi-level agent-based modeling has received significant
and dramatically increasing interest. In this article we present a
comprehensive and structured review of literature on the subject. We present
the main theoretical contributions and application domains of this concept,
with an emphasis on social, flow, biological and biomedical models.Comment: v2. Ref 102 added. v3-4 Many refs and text added v5-6 bibliographic
statistics updated. v7 Change of the name of the paper to reflect what it
became, many refs and text added, bibliographic statistics update
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 zugÀnglich.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
Systematically Engineering Self-Organizing Systems: The SodekoVS Approach
Self-organizing systems promise new software quality attributes that
are very hard to obtain using standard software engineering approaches. In accordance
with the visions of e.g. autonomic computing and organic computing,
self-organizing systems promote self-adaptability as one major property helping to
realize software that can manage itself at runtime. In this respect, self-adaptability
can be seen as a necessary foundation for realizing e.g. self* properties such as self-configuration or self-protection. However, the systematic development of systems
exhibiting such properties challenges current development practices. The SodekoVS
project addresses the challenge to purposefully engineer adaptivity by proposing a
new approach that considers the system architecture as well as the software development
methodology as integral intertwined aspects for system construction. Following
the proposed process, self-organizing dynamics, inspired by biological, physical
and social systems, can be integrated into applications by composing modules
that distribute feedback control structures among system entities. These compositions
support hierarchical as well as completely decentralized solutions without a
single point of failure. This novel development conception is supported by a reference
architecture, a tailored programming model as well as a library of ready to use
self-organizing patterns. The key challenges, recent research activities, application
scenarios as well as intermediate results are discussed
Contrasting Views of Complexity and Their Implications For Network-Centric Infrastructures
There exists a widely recognized need to better understand
and manage complex âsystems of systems,â ranging from
biology, ecology, and medicine to network-centric technologies.
This is motivating the search for universal laws of highly evolved
systems and driving demand for new mathematics and methods
that are consistent, integrative, and predictive. However, the theoretical
frameworks available today are not merely fragmented
but sometimes contradictory and incompatible. We argue that
complexity arises in highly evolved biological and technological
systems primarily to provide mechanisms to create robustness.
However, this complexity itself can be a source of new fragility,
leading to ârobust yet fragileâ tradeoffs in system design. We
focus on the role of robustness and architecture in networked
infrastructures, and we highlight recent advances in the theory
of distributed control driven by network technologies. This view
of complexity in highly organized technological and biological systems
is fundamentally different from the dominant perspective in
the mainstream sciences, which downplays function, constraints,
and tradeoffs, and tends to minimize the role of organization and
design
Integrated Simulation and Design Synthesis
The potential benefits of mathematically predicting and analyzing the integrated behavior
of product concepts throughout the design synthesis cycle are widely recognized. Better
up-front integrated design will not only reduce development time and cost, but also will
yield higher quality products with improved performance. Many academic researchers
and companies have attempted to develop integrated simulation environments, and it has
been observed consistently that significant difficulties arise because of the large scale,
complexity, rate-of-change, heterogeneity, and proprietary barriers associated with
product design synthesis. However, the focus of most integration efforts has been on
enabling technology, while the process of how integrated systems are constructed has not
been questioned.
The literature acknowledges that it is very difficult to represent and structure emergent
processes using explicit system definition techniques like those that have been almost
universally adopted. The belief that design synthesis is an emergent system definition
process drives the search for a different approach to building integrated design
simulations. Inspired by a vision of the World-Wide Web as an emergent informationnetwork
building environment, a World-Wide Simulation Web concept is proposed for
defining an emergent, integrated, simulation-building environment. Participants should
be able to make interfaces to local sub-system simulations parametrically operable and
accessible over the Internet. Furthermore, any participant should be able to make
relationships between parameters in different simulation interfaces or to create additional
models that bridge interfaces to different simulations distributed over the Internet.
The DOME (Distributed Object-based Modeling Environment) project has developed a
software infrastructure for the purpose of refining and testing emergent simulation
definition concepts. A federating solving mechanism has been developed that allows
local solvers to respond in a manner that is consistent with the overall system structure
even though there is no centralized coordination of the simulation. Results from several
pilot studies support the belief that an emergent, decentralized approach to building
integrated simulations can resolve many of the difficulties associated with integrated
system simulation.Center for Innovation in Product Developmen
Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition
Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of
industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of
knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New
developments in information processing and information communication
technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions,
representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective,
multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative
work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences,
sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary
unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the
descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process
of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied
domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their
design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and
various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user
experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions.
When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from
different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing
common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our
environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces
for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of
transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics.
We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our
different research fields that include information studies, computability,
human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and
philosophy.Comment: Chapter in a forthcoming book: Information Studies and the Quest for
Transdisciplinarity - Forthcoming book in World Scientific. Mark Burgin and
Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Editor
Hybrid Societies : Challenges and Perspectives in the Design of Collective Behavior in Self-organizing Systems
Hybrid societies are self-organizing, collective systems, which are composed of different components, for example, natural and artificial parts (bio-hybrid) or human beings interacting with and through technical systems (socio-technical). Many different disciplines investigate methods and systems closely related to the design of hybrid societies. A stronger collaboration between these disciplines could allow for re-use of methods and create significant synergies. We identify three main areas of challenges in the design of self-organizing hybrid societies. First, we identify the formalization challenge. There is an urgent need for a generic model that allows a description and comparison of collective hybrid societies. Second, we identify the system design challenge. Starting from the formal specification of the system, we need to develop an integrated design process. Third, we identify the challenge of interdisciplinarity. Current research on self-organizing hybrid societies stretches over many different fields and hence requires the re-use and synthesis of methods at intersections between disciplines. We then conclude by presenting our perspective for future approaches with high potential in this area
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