Reasoning about Autonomy in Multi-Agent Systems

A domain-independent approach to reasoning about the autonomy level of agent goals is presented. The approach is based on general representations of knowledge about goals and resources. A hybrid two-stage reasoning process is proposed, consisting of a belief net and a case-based reasoner. Belief nets are examined in detail as a mechanism for establishing the basic autonomy level of an agent for a goal. Accepted to Intelligent Systems Conference: A Semiotic Modeling Perspective Workshop: Semiotic Modeling for Sensible Agents Workshop organizers: K. Suzanne Barber Electrical and Computer Engineering The University of Texas at Austin 24th and Speedway, ENS 240 Austin, TX 78712 phone: (512) 471-6152 fax: (512) 471-3652 Srini Ramaswamy 800 Wheatley Street School of Computer and Applied Sciences Georgia Southwestern State University Americus, GA 31709 Phone: (912) 931-2100 [email protected] October 23-25, REASONING ABOUT AUTONOMY IN MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS Robert Macfadze..

Accepted to Special Issue on Software Agents and Simulation, SIMULATION, April 2001 A Distributed Agent-based Simulation Environment for Interference Detection and Resolution

this paper, a two-level architecture is developed and implemented for the interactive simulation and evaluation of a distributed agent-based simulation environment designed to detect and resolve interference in naval radar units. The Java-based simulation is designed as a two level software architecture incorporating: i) multiple radars on each ship controlled through a lower-level intra-ship interference control module, and, ii) multiple ships in a group coordinated through a higher-level interference control module. Each ship's interference detection and resolution mechanism, termed a control agent, is composed of these two separate levels, which dynamically coordinate to detect and then resolve interference problems using three different coordination strategies - a Master-Slave, a Locally Autonomous and a simple Negotiation mod

Object-Oriented Analysis, Modeling, and Simulation of a Notional Air Defense System

This paper describes the analysis, modeling, and simulation of a notional air defense system using SMOOCHES (State Machines for Object-Oriented, Concurrent, Hierarchical Engineering Specifications). SMOOCHES is an object-oriented environment based on hierarchical state machines and extensions to Statecharts, specifically developed as an environment to specify, model, simulate and analyze / evaluate distributed, reactive systems

Supporting Dynamic Adaptive Autonomy for Agent-based Systems

The level of autonomy at which individual agents function is of critical importance to the overall operation of multiagent systems. The term level of autonomy refers to the type of interactions between an agent and other agents in its system. In well-defined contexts, agents can be designed for a single level of autonomy by predicting the type of problems that will be faced. However, in dynamic systems, the appropriate level of autonomy may depend on the situation. Therefore, substantial performance benefits for agent-based systems can be realized by agents that are capable of dynamically adapting their level of autonomy during system operation. This paper develops a representation for agent autonomy level and discusses how dynamic adaptive autonomy can be used to create flexible multi-agent systems applicable to manufacturing environments. Introduction Manufacturing environments are complex and dynamic. These characteristics drive the need to automate (Figure 1). The investigation of..

Supporting Dynamic Adaptive Autonomy for Agent-based Systems

The level of autonomy at which individual agents function is of critical importance to the overall operation of multi-agent systems. The term level of autonomy refers to the type of interactions between an agent and other agents in its system. In well-defined contexts, agents can be designed for a single level of autonomy by predicting the type of problems that will be faced. However, in dynamic systems, the appropriate level of autonomy may depend on the situation. Therefore, substantial performance benefits for agent-based systems can be realized by agents that are capable of dynamically adapting their level of autonomy during system operation. This paper develops a representation for agent autonomy level and discusses how dynamic adaptive autonomy can be used to create flexible multi-agent systems applicable to manufacturing environments. Accepted to Artificial Intelligence and Manufacturing: A Research Planning Workshop Albuquerque, NM Contact person: Leslie Interrante..

Electron transport anisotropies in pseudomorphic InGaAs channel materials and their structural origin

Measurements of the electron transport properties in Inx Ga1-x As (x = 0.2 and x = 0.3) channel heterostructures have consistently shown the transport mobility to be higher in the [01 and 1macr;] direction compared to [011] on a (100) wafer. Low temperature (1.6 K) measurements of these materials show that the mobility difference can be as large as 30% whilst the differences in carrier concentrations for the two directions are negligible in comparison. The mobility anisotropy decreases to below 5% at room temperature as the effects of phonon scattering, which is isotropic, begin to dominate. The anisotropy in the quantum mobility is much less pronounced than that in the transport mobility. This suggests that the low mobility in the [011] direction is primarily a result of large angle scattering. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis was performed on cross-sections of material in the two directions. Thickness fluctuations in the channel were observed whilst traversing the channel of a (01 and 1macr;) section in the [011] direction where as none were observed in (011) sections along the [01 and 1macr;] direction. The length scale of the fluctuations was variable but typically around 50-100 nm. Transport simulations reveal that a 1-dimensional potential modulation with a wavelength similar to that of the fluctuations produces a mobility anisotropy with the observed sign. Therefore it is likely that the thickness variations, possibly combined with synchronous fluctuations in the indium concentration along the [011] direction, are responsible for the reduced mobility in [011] transport. Although to the best of our knowledge these thickness fluctuations are reported here for the first time, similar growth anisotropies are well known for Inx Ga1-x As layers deposited on InP