Distributed Real-Time Situation Assessment.
Abstract
The goal of this research is the development of a generic agent architecture to support development of large-scale distributed realtime situation assessment systems (DSA). The key issues are how to organize both local agent and network-wide problem solving so that the agents can cooperate effectively to produce answers of appropriate quality within fixed deadlines, using limited communication bandwidth, and having performance degrade gracefully as sensors, communication links, and processors fail. The basis of our generic agent architecture is the use of the TAEMS task structure representation. This domain-independent representation permits a problem solver to express (1) its perceived medium timeframe goals; (2) alternative methods for achieving these goals and the trade-offs among them (in terms of expected quality of results and duration); (3) how the solutions to subgoals contribute to the overall goal; and (4) the relationships among the tasks needed to achieve specific goals. The relationships among different agents task structures are used in implementing domain-independent coordination protocols. The agents' local coordination modules interact, resulting in modifications to the agents' local task structures. The adapted local task structures are used by each local realtime scheduler to find the best sequences of activities to meet the network-wide objectives.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 30, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA313528
Entities
People
- Victor R. Lesser
Organizations
- University of Massachusetts Amherst