Incorporating knowledge about interaction for uniform agent design for simulation and operation

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with transferability of agent implementations from real-world operation to simulation. The objective is to minimise the additional effort for testing and evaluating agent behaviour, mainly arising from the need for synchronisation of simulation time. This can be achieved by incorporating knowledge about agent interaction. An implementation for the FIPA request agent interaction protocol demonstrates the feasibility of this approach.

REFERENCES

• 1: Fabio Luigi Bellifemine , Giovanni Caire , Dominic Greenwood, Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE (Wiley Series in Agent Technology), John Wiley & Sons, 2007
• 2: Richard M. Fujimoto, Parallel and Distribution Simulation Systems, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1999
• 3: Nicholas R. Jennings, An agent-based approach for building complex software systems, Communications of the ACM, v.44 n.4, p.35-41, April 2001 [doi>10.1145/367211.367250]
• 4: H. Van Dyke Parunak , Robert Savit , Rick L. Riolo, Agent-Based Modeling vs. Equation-Based Modeling: A Case Study and Users' Guide, Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems and Agent-Based Simulation, p.10-25, July 04-06, 1998
• 5: Arne Schuldt , Jan D. Gehrke , Sven Werner, Designing a Simulation Middleware for FIPA Multiagent Systems, Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, p.109-113, December 09-12, 2008 [doi>10.1109/WIIAT.2008.202]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.8 Types of Simulation

General Terms:
Algorithms, Experimentation

Keywords:
agents, communication, interaction protocols, multiagent systems, multiagent-based simulation, synchronisation