Simulating evolutionary agent communities with OOCSMP

ABSTRACT

This paper describes some extensions added to the continuous simulation language OOCSMP to perform agent-oriented simulation. The extensions are tested by simulating the evolution of a colony of virtual ants (vants). In this simulation, each vant is modelled as an agent and is assigned a set of genes that control some aspects of its behaviour, such as its velocity, memory, communication abilities, scepticism, etc. Some emergent properties of the swarm of vants have been observed.

REFERENCES

• 1: Nicholas R. Jennings , Katia Sycara , Michael Wooldridge, A Roadmap of Agent Research and Development, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, v.1 n.1, p.7-38, 1998 [doi>10.1023/A:1010090405266]
• 2: Michael Wooldridge, Intelligent agents, Multiagent systems: a modern approach to distributed artificial intelligence, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999
• 3: Swarm home page: http://www.swarm.org
• 4: Axtell, R. "Why Agents? On the varied motivations for agent computing in the social sciences". Working paper n°17 at Center on Social and Economic Dynamics. Brookings Institution. 2000.
• 5: Drogoul, A. "When Ants Play Chess (Or Can Strategies Emerge From Tactical Behaviors?)". LNAI, n°957, pp. 13-27, Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg (1995.).
• 6: Dorigo, M., Maniezzo, V. "The Ant System: Optimization by a colony of cooperating agents". IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part-B, Vol.26 (1996), No.1, pp. 1-13.
• 7: de Lara, J., Alfonseca, M. "Some strategies for the simulation of vocabulary agreement in multi-agent communities". JASSS vol. 3 (2000), no. 4, <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/3/4/2.html>
• 8: Peter T. Hraber , Terry Jones , Stephanie Forrest, The ecology of echo, Artificial Life, v.3 n.3, p.165-190, 1997
• 9: Ophir, S. "Simulating Ideologies". Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 1 (1998), no. 4, <http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS/1/4/5.html>
• 10: G. Nigel Gilbert , Klaus G. Troitzsch, Simulation for the Social Scientist, Taylor & Francis, Inc., Bristol, PA, 1999
• 11: IBM Corp.: "Continuous System Modelling Program III (CSMP III) and Graphic Feature (CSMP III Graphic Feature) General Information Manual", IBM Canada, Ontario, GH19-7000, 1972.
• 12: Alfonseca, M., Pulido, E., Orosco, R., de Lara, J. "OOCSMP: an object-oriented simulation language". ESS'97, Passau, pp. 44-48. 1997.
• 13: Alfonseca, M., de Lara, J., Pulido, E. "Semiautomatic Generation of Web Courses by Means of an Object-Oriented Simulation Language", special issue of "SIMULATION", Web-Based Simulation, Vol 73 (1999), num. 1, pp. 5-12.
• 14: Michael Fisher, Representing and executing agent-based systems, Proceedings of the workshop on agent theories, architectures, and languages on Intelligent agents, p.307-323, March 1995, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 15: Roger S. Pressman, Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 1996
• 16: Michael Wooldridge , Nicholas R. Jennings , David Kinny, The Gaia Methodology for Agent-Oriented Analysis and Design, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, v.3 n.3, p.285-312, September 2000 [doi>10.1023/A:1010071910869]
• 17: John H. Holland, Adaptation in natural and artificial systems, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.2 Simulation Languages

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

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Languages

Keywords:
OOCSMP, agent-based simulation, artificial ants, evolution, multi-agent languages, swarm Intelligence