ISBN: 3-540-65495-X
TITLE: Co-ordination in Artificial Agent Societies
AUTHOR: Ossowski, Sascha
TOC:

1 Introduction 1 
1.1 Motivation 1 
1.2 Scope 7 
1.3 Scientific Objectives 9 
1.4 Terminological Remarks 12 
1.5 Organisation of the Book 13 
2 Co-ordination 15 
2.1 An Informal Characterisation 15 
2.2 Analytic Models 16 
2.2.1 Organisational Interdependencies 17 
2.2.2 Organisational Co-ordination Mechanisms 19 
2.2.3 Formal and Informal Organisation 20 
2.3 Formal Approaches 21 
2.3.1 Centralised Co-ordination 22 
2.3.1.1 Quantitative Models 22 
2.3.1.2 Qualitative Models 22 
2.3.2 Decentralised Co-ordination 23 
2.3.2.1 The Notion of Games 23 
2.3.2.2 Partially Conflictive Games 24 
2.3.2.3 Pitfalls of the Co-ordination Process 26 
2.4 Bottom Line 29 
3 Distributed Artificial Intelligence 31 
3.1 Overview of Research Fields 31 
3.1.1 A Short History 32 
3.1.2 Autonomous Agents 33 
3.1.2.1 Characterisation 34 
3.1.2.2 Techniques 35 
3.1.3 Distributed Problem Solving 38 
3.1.3.1 Characterisation 39 
3.1.3.2 Techniques 40 
3.1.4 Multi-Agent Systems 43 
3.1.4.1 Characterisation 43 
3.1.4.2 Techniques 44 
3.2 Co-ordination Mechanisms 48 
3.2.1 Organisation 48 
3.2.2 Multi-Agent Planning 49 
3.2.3 Negotiation 50 
3.2.4 Examples 52 
3.2.4.1 Shoham and Tennenholz: Social Laws 52 
3.2.4.2 Goldman and Rosenschein: Co-operative Rules 53 
3.2.4.3 Sichman et al.: Dependence Situations 53 
3.2.4.4 Rosenschein and Zlotkin: Rules of Encounter 54 
3.3 Co-ordination Frameworks 55 
3.3.1 Von Martial: Co-ordination of Autonomous Agents' Plans 56 
3.3.2 Decker: TMS and GPGP 57 
3.3.3 Lander: the TEAM Framework 59 
3.4 Bottom Line 61 
4 Analysis 65 
4.1 Limitations of Present Co-ordination Models 65 
4.2 The Approach of this Book 68 
5 Emergent Co-ordination by Structural Co-operation 71 
5.1 The Metaphor: Functionality of Social Structure 71 
5.1.1 Structural Functionalism 71 
5.1.2 A Constructive Perspective 74 
5.2 The Problem: Reactive Co-ordination 75 
5.2.1 A Formal Model 76 
5.2.2 The Synchronous Blocks Domain 78 
5.2.3 An Example Setting 81 
5.3 The Mechanism: Structural Co-operation 83 
5.3.1 Overview 84 
5.3.2 The Individual Context 86 
5.3.2.1 On the Conception of Goal 86 
5.3.2.2 Basic Notions 86 
5.3.2.3 Self-Interested Action 87 
5.3.3 The Social Context 88 
5.3.3.1 Basic Notions 88 
5.3.3.2 Relations between Plans 88 
5.3.3.3 Dependence Relations between Agents 90 
5.3.3.4 Social Exchange 94 
5.3.4 The Normative Context 95 
5.3.4.1 Deontic Notions 96 
5.3.4.2 The Effect of Normative Prescriptions 98 
5.3.4.3 Social Structure 100 
5.4 Related Work 101 
5.5 Bottom Line 103 
6 Structural Co-operation and Bargaining 105 
6.1 Structural Co-operation as a Bargaining Scenario 105 
6.1.1 Modelling Co-operation 106 
6.1.2 Modelling Conflict 110 
6.1.3 The Associated Bargaining Scenario 112 
6.2 Solutions to the Associated Bargaining Scenario 113 
6.2.1 The Nash Solution 113 
6.2.2 Alternative Solutions 117 
6.2.3 Analysis 118 
6.3 The Role of the Disagreement Point 119 
6.4 Related Work 121 
6.5 Bottom Line 124 
7 An Instrumentation of Structural Co-operation 127 
7.1 The ProsA_2 Agent Architecture 127 
7.1.1 Overview 127 
7.1.2 Information Model 129 
7.1.2.1 Self and Acquaintance Models 130 
7.1.2.2 Problem-Solving and Deontic Models 130 
7.1.2.3 Individual and Social Models 131 
7.1.3 Layer Models 132 
7.1.3.1 Individual Layer 132 
7.1.3.2 Social Layer 133 
7.1.3.3 Normative Layer 133 
7.2 Social Interaction Strategy 134 
7.2.1 Motivation 134 
7.2.2 Multi-Stage Co-ordination Process 135 
7.2.3 Asynchronous Search for Pareto-Optimality 137 
7.2.3.1 Overview 138 
7.2.3.2 Local Choice 139 
7.2.3.3 Knowledge and Information Requirements 140 
7.2.3.4 Message Types 141 
7.2.3.5 Local Behaviour Strategy 142 
7.2.3.6 Solution Detection 144 
7.2.4 Applying the Nash Solution 146 
7.2.5 Analysis 148 
7.3 Related Work 150 
7.4 Bottom Line 151 
8 Road Traffic Management 153 
8.1 Urban Traffic Management 153 
8.1.1 Traffic Control Infrastructure 153 
8.1.2 Decision Support for Real-Time Traffic Management 155 
8.2 The TRYS Approach 156 
8.2.1 Motivation 157 
8.2.2 The Centralised TRYS Architecture 158 
8.3 Multi-Agent TRYS 159 
8.3.1 Motivation 160 
8.3.2 The Multi-Agent TRYS Architecture 161 
9 A Case Study 163 
9.1 The Scenario 163 
9.2 Local Problem Solving 165 
9.2.1 Conceptual Model 165 
9.2.2 Knowledge Model 168 
9.2.2.1 Physical Network Structure 168 
9.2.2.2 Problem Scenarios 169 
9.2.2.3 Traffic Distribution Scenarios 169 
9.2.2.4 Historic Traffic Demand 170 
9.2.3 Reasoning 170 
9.3 Co-ordination 172 
9.3.1 Conceptual Model 172 
9.3.2 Knowledge Model 175 
9.3.2.1 Plan Interrelations 175 
9.3.2.2 Agent Dependence 176 
9.3.2.3 Norms 177 
9.3.3 Reasoning 178 
9.4 Implementation Issues 180 
9.4.1 Knowledge Acquisition and Reuse 180 
9.4.2 Process Arrangement 181 
9.4.3 Object Hierarchy 183 
9.5 Evaluation 184 
9.5.1 Co-ordination Policy 185 
9.5.2 Knowledge Requirements 187 
9.5.3 Architecture 188 
10 Conclusions 191 
10.1 Contributions 191 
10.2 Limitations 193 
10.3 Future Work 194 
Appendix 197 
A. Proofs 197 
B. Examples of Knowledge Bases 201 
References 209 
END
