Multi-Agent Systems

Jacques Ferber

  • 出版商: Addison Wesley
  • 出版日期: 1999-02-25
  • 售價: $950
  • 語言: 英文
  • 頁數: 528
  • 裝訂: Paperback
  • ISBN: 0201360489
  • ISBN-13: 9780201360486
  • 已絕版

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Table Of Contents

1. Principles of Multi-Agent Systems.
In favor of a collective intelligence.
From the thinking machine ….
… to artificial organization.

Agent and society.
Some definitions.
Levels of organization.
Social or biological?
Architecture and behavior.
Languages, communications and representations.

A little history.
The early years.
The classical age.
The influence of artificial life.
Modern times.

Areas of application.
Problem solving.
Multi-agent simulation.
The construction of synthetic worlds.
Collective robotics.
Kenetic program design.

Principal aspects of kenetics.
The issues of action.
The individual and its relationship with the world.
Interaction.
Adaptation.
The creation and implementation of MASs.

Areas related to multi-agent systems.
Artificial intelligence.
Systemics.
Distributed systems.
Robotics.
What is not covered by kenetics.


2. Interactions and Cooperation.
Interaction situations.
Components of interactions.
Compatible and incompatible goals.
Relation to resources.
Capacities of agents in relation to tasks.

Types of interaction.
Independence.
Simple collaboration.
Obstruction.
Coordinated collaboration.
Pure individual competition.
Pure collective competition.
Individual conflicts over resources.
Collective conflicts over resources.
Level of analysis of interaction situations.

Forms of cooperation.
Cooperation as an intentional posture.
Cooperation from the observer's point of view.
Increasing survival capacity.
Improving performances.
Conflict resolution.

Methods of cooperation.
Grouping and multiplication.
Communication.
Specialization.
Collaborating by sharing tasks and resources.
Coordination of actions.
Conflict resolution by arbitration and negotiation.

Organizations and cooperation.
The cooperation activities system.
Advantages.
Social constraints and emergence of structures.


3. Multi-agent Organizations.
What is an organization?
Organizational structures and concrete organizations.
Levels of organization.
How should an organization be studied?

Functional analysis.
The functions of an organization.
Dimensions of analysis.
Dimensional analysis of an organization.
Grid for functional analysis of organizations.

Structural analysis.
Agents and tasks.
Abstract relationships.
Coupling modes.
Subordination and decision-making structures.
Ways of setting up organizational structures.

Concretisation parameters.
Analysis of a concrete organization.
The example of explorer robots.
Organizations with a fixed, hierarchical, predefined structure.
Organizations with a variable, egalitarian, emergent structure.
Organizations with a variable, egalitarian, predefined structure.
Organizations with an evolutionary structure.
Other work on organizations.

Individual organizations.
Table of main types of architecture.
Modular horizontal architecture.
Blackboard-based architecture.
Subsumption architecture.
Competitive tasks.
Production systems.
Classifier-based systems.
Connectionist architectures.
Architectures based on dynamic systems.
Multi-agent based architectures and actors.


4. Action and Behavior.
Modelling.
The models...
...and how MASs benefit from them.
What should be modelled?
Agents and actions: deceptively elementary concepts.
Modelling action.

Actions as transformation of a global state.
A functional representation of action.
STRIPS-like operators.
Planning with STRIPS-like operators.
Some plan categories.
Limits Of STRIPS-like planners.
Limits of classic representations of action.

Action as response to influences.
General presentation.
States.
Actions and reactions.
Interest of the influences/reactions model for MASs.

Action as processes in computer science.
Representation of processes by finite-state automata.
Register automata.
Representation of processes by Petri nets.
Other factual models.

Action as physical displacement.
Displacements in a potential field.
Appeal of this conception of action.

Action as local modification.
Cellular automata.
Representation of a cellular automaton.
Cellular automata and multi-agent systems.

Action as command.
Tropistic and hysteretic agents.
Tropistic agents.
Formal approach.
A tropistic multi-agent system.
Tropistic agents and situated actions.
Flexibility of situated actions.
The goals are in the environment.

Hysteretic agents.
Formal approach.
A hysteretic multi-agent system.
Modelling of hysteretic agents by automata.

Modelling of MASs in BRIC.
Describing MASs with the help of components.
Modelling of purely communicating MASs.
Modelling of environments.
Modelling of a situated MAS.
Modelling of a complete MAS.
An example: transporter agents.


5. States of (Artificial) Minds.
Mental states and intentionality.
Introduction.
The cogniton concept.
Types of cogniton.

The interactional system.
The representational system.
What is knowledge?
Representing knowledge and beliefs.
Logics of learning and beliefs.
Adequacy and revision of beliefs.

What to believe? Contents of representations.
Environmental beliefs.
Social beliefs (a).
Relational beliefs (a).
Personal beliefs (o).

The conative system.
Rationality and survival.
A model of the conative system.

Motivations: sources of actions.
Personal motivations: pleasure and constraints.
Environmental motivations desire for an object.
Social motivations: the weight of society.
Relational motivations: reason is other people.
Commitments: relational and social motivations and constraints.

Reactive undertaking of an action.
Consumatory acts and appetitive behaviors.
Action selection and control modes.
Action selection or dynamic combination.

Intentional transitions to an action.
Logical theories of intentions.
Cohen and Levesque's theory of rational action.


6. Communications.
Aspects of communication.
Signs, indicators and signals.
Definition and models of communication.
Communication categories.
What is communication for?

Speech acts.
To say is to do.
Locutory, illocutory and perlocutory acts.
Success and satisfaction.
Components of illocutory acts.

Conversations.
Conversations and finite-state automata.
Conversations and Petri nets.
A classification of speech acts for multi-agent conversational structures.

KQML.

7. Collaboration and Distribution of Tasks.
Modes of task allocation.
Criteria for breaking down tasks.
Roles.
Forms of allocation.

Centralized allocation of tasks by trader.
Distributed allocation of tasks.
Acquaintance network allocation.
Allocation by the contract net.
Variations and hybrid allocations.
Contracts and commitments.

Integrating tasks and mental states.
The SAM system.
The hierarchy of architectures.
The results.
The implementation of architectures.
Level 1.
Level 2.
Level 3.

Emergent allocation.
An example: the Manta system.
General description.
The system architecture.
Experimentation.
From ants to robot ants.


8. Coordination of Actions.
What is coordination of actions?

Definitions.
Coordination as problem solving.
Characteristics of coordination systems.
Forms of coordination of actions.
Synchronization of actions.

Synchronization of movements.
Synchronization of access to a resource.
Coordination of actions by planning.

Multi-agent planning.
Centralized planning for multiple agents.
Centralized coordination for partial plans.
Distributed coordination for partial plans.
Reactive coordination.

Coordination by situated actions.
On pack behavior in anti-collision systems.
Marking the environment.
Coordination actions.
Solving by coordination: eco-problem solving.

Principles of eco-problem solving.
Eco-agents.
Simple examples of eco-problems.
Evolutionary universes.
Formalisation.
Solving constraints by eco-problem solving.
9. Conclusion.
Appendix A.
The components.
Composite components.
Constitution of elementary components.
Communication links.
Notation conventions and equivalents.
Translation in the form of Petri nets.
Example.
Further reading and information on multi-agent systems.
Bibliographical references.
Index. 0201360489T04062001



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