Planned team activity (original) (raw)

A Theory of Action for MultiAgent Planning

Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence, 1988

A theory of action suitable for reasoning about events in multiagent or dynamically changing environments is prescntcrl. A device called a process model is used to represent the observable behavior of an agent in performing an action. This model is more general than previous models of act ion, allowing sequencing, selection, nondeterminism, iteration, and parallelism to be represented. It is shown how this model can be utilized in synthesizing plans and reasoning about concurrency.

Plan representation and execution in multi-actor scenarios by means of social commitments

Web Intelligence and Agent Systems: An International Journal, 2011

We present an approach to plan representation in multi-actor scenarios that is suitable for flexible replanning and plan revision purposes in dynamic non-deterministic multi-actor environments. The key idea of the presented approach is in representation of the distributed hierarchical plan by social commitments, as a theoretically studied formalism representing mutual relations among intentions of collaborating agents. The article presents a formal model of a recursive form of commitments and discusses how it can be deployed to a selected hierarchical planning scenario. The decommitment rules definition and their influence on the plan execution robustness and stability is also presented. The approach was verified and evaluated in a simulated environment. The experimental validation confirms the performance, stability, and robustness of the system in complex scenarios.

Towards Team-Orientation in Agent Design: Social Plan Execution

2003

We present a process-algebraic approach for the specification of agent systems where agents participate in joint activities, extending previous work by the first author in . While related to existing work on teamwork, such as , our focus here is not on discussing notions bearing on joint intentions or abilities. Rather, we focus on providing a specification language for agent systems and behaviors of agents. The language of behaviors we propose can also serve as a coordination language for specifying the flow of control in joint agent activity. We then provide an operational semantics for the language of social agents that we present, based on a notion of social structure that simplifies the semantics of social plan execution. The formation of the required social structure is part of the process of social plan formation. In this report we assume social plans are already available (pre-compiled or already formed) and focus on providing semantics for their execution.

An MDP model for planning team actions with communication

2009

In our work in Project 10, Task 1, we are investigating how agents can help teams to better perform their allocated tasks. Our work to date has developed models that construct plans for the members of a team, plans that allow the team to reach some specified team goal, and then extract from this the individual actions that team members have to perform. A key element of our work has been factoring into the plans, and the model that constructs the plans, the need for communication.

Towards the implementation of multiagent planning dialogues

Abstract—To support coalition teams, we are investigating the use of software agents that can help in planning team activities, thus reducing the cognitive burden on team members. Since the timely delivery of information can be crucial to team performance, we are especially interested in creating plans than explicitly include communications between team members. In previous work we developed a formal model of planning and communication that can support the creation of such plans.

A First-Order Formalization of Commitments and Goals for Planning

Commitments help model interactions in multiagent systems in a computationally realizable yet high-level manner without compromising the autonomy and heterogeneity of the member agents. Recent work shows how to combine commitments with goals and apply planning methods to enable agents to determine their actions. However, previous approaches to modeling commitments are confined to propositional representations, which limits their applicability in practical cases. We propose a first-order representation and reasoning technique that accommodates templatic commitments and goals that may be applied repeatedly with differing bindings for domain objects. Doing so not only leads to a more perspicuous modeling, but also supports many practical patterns.

Multiagent Plan Execution and Work Practice

Numerous interdependent and uncertain constraints affect plan execution onboard a space ship. Plans are often invalid as they are being executed in the real world. Human work practices partly develop to deal with these realities. However, practices are difficult to study and represent within traditional planning tools. We discuss how modeling the work practices of the ISS Crew is used to develop a plan execution method that can deal with real world situations onboard the ISS. Brahms—a multiagent activity-based language—is used ...

A Programming Language for Coordinating Group Actions

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2002

Coordination and cooperation are crucial notions in multi-agent systems. We provide a constraint programming language called GrAPL, with facilities for group communication, group formation and group collaboration. GrAPL includes three novel statements. Two of these enable groups of agents to communicate about possible constraints on a specific action they might do together. If the demands of the agents are compatible, the group reaches an agreement regarding future executions of the action discussed. The third statement is synchronised action execution. Groups of agents can perform an action together, as long as their constraints on the action are satisfied.

Abstract reasoning for multiagent coordination and planning

2002

As autonomous software and robotic systems (or agents) grow in complexity, they will increasingly need to communicate and coordinate with each other. These agents will need planned courses of action to achieve their goals while sharing limited resources. This dissertation addresses the problem of efficiently interleaving planning and coordination for multiple agents.