Multiagent Systems(and their use in industry)

Marc-Philippe HugetUniversity of Savoie

Marc-Philippe.Huget@univ-savoie.fr

@mphuget

SOME ILLUSTRATIONS

2

3

Before…

In movies

Lots of real persons

But that, this was before…

4

Movie

Lord of the Rings: Helm’s Deep battle

What you see…Now…

5

Weta Digital Massive software

…and in backstage

6

iRobot

And numerous other movies…

7

MATSim Singapore

Transport simulation

Every car is an agent with a specific behaviourThe objective is to assert urban decisions androad infrastructure

8

Platform for modelling multi-modal transportationHere, the Great London with an OSM map

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R164GYhj8Qs

9

http://agents.fel.cvut.cz/topics/manufacturing_and_logistics

10

http://www.eurobios.com/fr/an-agent-based-model-of-a-corrugated-box-factory

Agents are used to model and simulate production in a corrugatedbox factory, with the on time in full schema

11

Agent are frequently used in biological and social sciences•Understanding social networks•Simulating ants, herds and crowds•Understanding micro- and macro- economies

Here, simulating ant nests

12[Ferrand 97]

Finding the “best” position for pylons based on several conflicting opinions

13

Timetable scheduling

Acklin companies: the KIR systemAgents support communication between the consortiumfor insurance claimshttp://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~dasta101/tfg/romefiles/Aart.pdfhttp://www.agentlink.org/resources/webCS/AL3_CS_004_Acklin.pdf

Every agent has user availability andconstraints, altogether they are ableto provide a coherent view

14

Realtime dynamic schedulingIn logistics

http://www.magenta-technology.com

15

16

Source : CASCOM

FP6-IST-2

Coordination of services

17

http://joram.ow2.org

Plastic interfaces

Self-* systemsAutonomic Computing

Asynchronous messaging, part of JBoss, Agents inside for scalability issues

Agents inside to proposeGUI based on SW/HWrequirements

Agents can be used for dynamic adaptationand without control duties

18

And numerous other examples…

WHEN AGENTS COULD HELP YOU

19

Two domains of use

• Simulation• (Distributed-) Problem Solving

20

21

One important thing to bear in mind

Multiagent systems will never be better than algorithmsIf you have an algorithm, go for itIf you only have heuristics, well, there is room for agents…

22

Some words to qualify multiagent systems

Local

Global

Local behaviours into agentsIndividual centered

Collective behaviours as a result ofIndividual behavioursCommunity centered

Cooperation (and coordination)between (heterogeneous) entities

Intelligent behavioursMachine learning

Multiagent systems may scale to millionsof agents if needed. The dynamic featureAllows them to adapt to new dimensions

23

Some other words

Autonomy: agents do not accept orders from others either agents or usersDecentralisation: this is not a master/slave architecture, related to autonomyDistribution: agents are naturally distributed over a networkProactive: agents take into consideration modifications to achieve their goalsRationality: agents use beliefs, desires and intentions for deciding upon next actionsContext-based: agents perceive the environment to adapt their behavioursSocial: agents are organised into groupsHigh-level interaction: agents use protocols to interact and coordinatePlanning-based systems: agents elaborate plans to achieve their goalsAdaptive: agents adapt themselves from modifications from the environmentMobile: agents can hop from platform to platform to be close to data

AGENT PLATFORMS

24

JADE

25

Java Agent DEvelopment frameworkThe de facto standard for agent development

A middleware for the development and run-time execution of peer-to-peer intelligent-agent applicationsRuns seamlessly in the mobile and in the fixed environments

Agent-basedWorkflow-based task descriptionMobile versionFIPA based

http://jade.tilab.com

Madkit

26

MaDKit is an open source modular and scalable multiagent platform written in Java

http://www.madkit.org

AGENT THEORY

27

What is a multiagent system?

A multiagent system is a set of real or virtual autonomous entities (called agents)which are pro-active or reactive (depending on needs)and interact together so as to achieve an activity which is of its own, or shared between entities

28

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

29

But an agent, this is an object, right?

30

But an agent, this isan object, right?

First answer:

31

But an agent, this isan object, right?

Definitely NO

Right, an agent like objects has a state and a behaviourBUT

– Agents have control over their behaviours, they may decide whether to answer positively or not to a call from another agent. As a consequence, they can refuse to do something

– Interactions between agents are richer than method calls between objects. Agents exchange goals, plans, actions, hypotheses, beliefs

– Agents have different ways to behave: reactive one, goal-driven, social one

32

So, you mean an agentis an expert system

33

So you mean an agentis an expert system

Well, this is partly right

For experts, behaviour is IF THEN ELSEDumb agents may have this behaviour

BUT more complex behaviours are possible, and the social dimension has to take into account

34

Do I need to learn a new programming language?

35

Do I need to learn a newprogramming language?

NO

Agents are frequently/easily programmed with object-oriented languages, Java is the most used one

Scala can be considered too, especially with the notion of actors, or with the Akka project

36