Coordination Of Large Scale Multiagent Systems

Challenges arise when the size of a group of cooperating agents is scaled to hundreds or thousands of members. In domains such as space exploration, military and disaster response, groups of this size (or larger) are required to achieve extremely complex, distributed goals. To effectively and efficiently achieve their goals, members of a group need to cohesively follow a joint course of action while remaining flexible to unforeseen developments in the environment. Coordination of Large-Scale Multiagent Systems provides extensive coverage of the latest research and novel solutions being developed in the field. It describes specific systems, such as SERSE and WIZER, as well as general approaches based on game theory, optimization and other more theoretical frameworks. It will be of interest to researchers in academia and industry, as well as advanced-level students.

Challenges arise when the size of a group of cooperating agents is scaled to hundreds or thousands of members. In domains such as space exploration, military and disaster response, groups of this size (or larger) are required to achieve extremely complex, distributed goals. To effectively and efficiently achieve their goals, members of a group need to cohesively follow a joint course of action while remaining flexible to unforeseen developments in the environment. Coordination of Large-Scale Multiagent Systems provides extensive coverage of the latest research and novel solutions being developed in the field. It describes specific systems, such as SERSE and WIZER, as well as general approaches based on game theory, optimization and other more theoretical frameworks. It will be of interest to researchers in academia and industry, as well as advanced-level students.

Nowadays, engineering large-scale software systems means dealing with complex systems composed of pervasive software components that move around and adapt to nondeterministic and open environments, like the Internet, in order to achieve systems design goals through the coordination of autonomously distributed services. The agent metaphor, in particular software agents and multi-agent systems (MAS), constitutes a promising approach for covering most of the software development life cycle, from conceptual modeling and requirements specification to architectural definition, design, and implementation. This book presents 17 carefully reviewed papers arranged in order to provide a coherent survey of how to exploit agent properties and MAS issues in today's software systems. The book offers the following topical sections: - software engineering foundations - requirements engineering and software architecture - coordination and mobility - reuse -dependability -empirical studies and applications

In the era of ubiquitous computing and networking, millions of electronic devices with computing facilities in the public space are connected with each other in ad hoc ways, but are required to behave coherently. Massively multi-agent systems, MMAS can be a major design paradigm or an implementation method for ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence. As the infrastructure of massively multi-agent systems, technologies such as grid computing together with semantic annotation can be combined with agent technology. A new system design approach, society-centered design, may be realized by embedding participatory technologies in human society. This book originates from the First International Workshop on Massively Multi-Agent Systems, MMAS 2004, held in Kyoto, Japan in December 2004. The 25 revised full selected and invited papers give an excellent introduction and overview on massively multi-agent systems. The papers are organized in parts on massively multi-agent technology, teams and organization, ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence, and massively multi-agent systems in the public space.

A comprehensive review of the state of the art in the control of multi-agent systems theory and applications The superiority of multi-agent systems over single agents for the control of unmanned air, water and ground vehicles has been clearly demonstrated in a wide range of application areas. Their large-scale spatial distribution, robustness, high scalability and low cost enable multi-agent systems to achieve tasks that could not successfully be performed by even the most sophisticated single agent systems. Cooperative Control of Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications provides a wide-ranging review of the latest developments in the cooperative control of multi-agent systems theory and applications. The applications described are mainly in the areas of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Throughout, the authors link basic theory to multi-agent cooperative control practice — illustrated within the context of highly-realistic scenarios of high-level missions — without losing site of the mathematical background needed to provide performance guarantees under general working conditions. Many of the problems and solutions considered involve combinations of both types of vehicles. Topics explored include target assignment, target tracking, consensus, stochastic game theory-based framework, event-triggered control, topology design and identification, coordination under uncertainty and coverage control. Establishes a bridge between fundamental cooperative control theory and specific problems of interest in a wide range of applications areas Includes example applications from the fields of space exploration, radiation shielding, site clearance, tracking/classification, surveillance, search-and-rescue and more Features detailed presentations of specific algorithms and application frameworks with relevant commercial and military applications Provides a comprehensive look at the latest developments in this rapidly evolving field, while offering informed speculation on future directions for collective control systems The use of multi-agent system technologies in both everyday commercial use and national defense is certain to increase tremendously in the years ahead, making this book a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, and applied mathematicians working in systems and controls, as well as advanced undergraduates and graduate students interested in those areas.

With the proliferation of consumer devices, computation is becoming truly ubiq- tous. Multi-agent systems hold the promise to enable utilization of these compu- tional resources for ground-breaking new applications. However, as the number of agents involved in multi-agent computations rises, traditional approaches of bui- ing multi-agent systems fail to scale. Massively multi-agent systems address this challenge of scale. Massive, in this context, is meant to capture the complexity of such systems, which precludes decision making to focus on individual agents. Agents making decisions have to reduce the complexity of the space in which they must decide. The focus, therefore, is on the approaches to manage the compl- ity, implications of this abstraction, as well as on identifying ways of applying the paradigm to problems. Papers appearing in this volume have been selected from three inter- tional workshops held in conjunction with the International Conferences on - tonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) held in 2006 and 2007: First International Workshop on Coordination and Control in Massively Mul- agent Systems (CCMMS 2007); and the jointly held Second International Workshop on Massively Multi-agent Systems (MMAS 2006) and the Third Int- national Workshop on Challenges in the Coordination of Large-Scale Multi-agent Systems (LSMAS 2006).

Provides a comprehensive overview and introduction to the concepts, methodologies, analysis, design and applications of metasynthetic computing and engineering. The author: • Presents an overview of complex systems, especially open complex giant systems such as the Internet, complex behavioural and social problems, and actionable knowledge discovery and delivery in the big data era. • Discusses ubiquitous intelligence in complex systems, including human intelligence, domain intelligence, social intelligence, network intelligence, data intelligence and machine intelligence, and their synergy through metasynthetic engineering. • Explains the concept and methodology of human-centred, human-machine-cooperated qualitative-to-quantitative metasynthesis for understanding and managing open complex giant systems, and its computing approach: metasynthetic computing. • Introduces techniques and tools for analysing and designing problem-solving systems for open complex problems and systems. Metasynthetic Computing and Engineering uses the systematology methodology in addressing system complexities in open complex giant systems, for which it may not only be effective to apply reductionism or holism. The book aims to encourage and inspire discussions, design, implementation and reflection of effective methodologies and tools for computing and engineering open complex systems and problems. Researchers, research students and practitioners in complex systems, artificial intelligence, data science, computer science, and even system science, cognitive science, behaviour science, and social science, will find this book invaluable.

Agents are software processes that perceive and act in an environment, processing their perceptions to make intelligent decisions about actions to achieve their goals. Multi-agent systems have multiple agents that work in the same environment to achieve either joint or conflicting goals. Agent computing and technology is an exciting, emerging paradigm expected to play a key role in many society-changing practices from disaster response to manufacturing to agriculture. Agent and mul- agent researchers are focused on building working systems that bring together a broad range of technical areas from market theory to software engineering to user interfaces. Agent systems are expected to operate in real-world environments, with all the challenges complex environments present. After 11 successful PRIMA workshops/conferences (Pacific-Rim International Conference/Workshop on Multi-Agents), PRIMA became a new conference titled “International Conference on Principles of Practice in Multi-Agent Systems” in 2009. With over 100 submissions, an acceptance rate for full papers of 25% and 50% for posters, a demonstration session, an industry track, a RoboCup competition and workshops and tutorials, PRIMA has become an important venue for multi-agent research. Papers submitted are from all parts of the world, though with a higher representation of Pacific Rim countries than other major multi-agent research forums. This volume presents 34 high-quality and exciting technical papers on multimedia research and an additional 18 poster papers that give brief views on exciting research.