Multi Agent System
Multi Agent System
Ankit Bhardwaj
Dept. of Information Technology
NIT Durgapur, WB
About Agent
Agents are considered one of the most important and latest paradigms that on the one hand may improve on current methods for conceptualizing, designing and implementing software systems, and on the other hand may be the solution to the legacy software integration problem.
Programming Progression
Programming has progressed through: machine code; assembly language; machine-independent programming languages; sub-routines; procedures & functions; abstract data types; objects; to agents.
History of Computing
Five ongoing trends have marked the history of computing: ubiquity interconnection intelligence delegation human-orientation
Ubiquity
The continual reduction in cost of computing capability has made it possible to introduce processing power into places and devices that would have once been uneconomic. As processing capability spreads, sophistication (and intelligence of a sort) becomes ubiquitous.
Interconnection
Computer systems today no longer stand alone, but are networked into large distributed systems The internet is an obvious example
Intelligence
The complexity of tasks that we are capable of automating and delegating to computers has grown steadily. If you dont feel comfortable with this definition of intelligence, its probably because you are a human.
Delegation
Computers are doing more for us without our intervention. We are giving control to computers, even in safety critical tasks. One example: fly-by-wire aircraft, where the machines judgment may be trusted more than an experienced pilot.
Human Orientation
The movement away from machine-oriented views of programming toward concepts and metaphors that more closely reflect the way we ourselves understand the world Programmers (and users!) relate to the machine differently Programmers conceptualize and implement software in terms of higher-level more human-oriented abstractions
What is an Agent ?
Although there is no single denition of an agent but all denitions agree that an Agent is essentially a special software component that has autonomy that provides an interoperable interface to an arbitrary system and/or behaves like a human agent, working for some clients in pursuit of its own agenda. In other words An agent is a computer system that is capable of independent action on behalf of its user or owner.
SYSTEM input ENVIRONMENT output
To successfully interact, they will require following abilities Cooperate Coordinate Negotiate
Properties of Agents
Autonomous : It operates without the direct intervention of humans or others and has control over its actions and internal state. Social : It cooperates with humans or other agents in order to achieve its tasks. Reactive : It perceives its environment and responds in a timely fashion to changes that occur in the environment. Proactive : It does not simply act in response to its environment but is able to exhibit goal-directed behavior by taking initiative. Mobile : It has ability to travel between different nodes in a computer network.
Properties of Environment
Accessible vs Inaccessible: Can the agent see everything ? Deterministic vs Non-deterministic: Do actions have guaranteed eect ? Static vs Dynamic: Does the environment change on its own? Discrete vs Continuous: Is the number of actions and percepts nite?
e1
a1
e2
a2
..
an
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State Functions
Perception Function
See : E Per
Action Function
Action : I
Next : Per * I
Ac
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Applications
Agents are usefully applied in domains where autonomous action is required. Intelligent agents are usefully applied in domains where flexible autonomous action is required. Main application areas: distributed/concurrent systems networks human-computer interfaces E-Commerce