Teaching Multi-Agent Systems using the ARES Simulator

Abstract We present the ARES 2 system, a simulator of a city struck by an earthquake to be used as testbed for agents written as assignment of a basic multi-agent systems course. We briefly present the structure of this basic course, look at ARES 2 from the perspective of an instructor, a student having to implement agents running in it, and a system developer. We also report on our experiences in using first ARES and then ARES 2 in 4 courses.

[1]  Victor R. Lesser,et al.  Functionally Accurate, Cooperative Distributed Systems , 1988, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[2]  Jörg Denzinger,et al.  Being the new guy in an experienced team: enhancing training on the job , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[3]  Makoto Yokoo,et al.  Robust Combinatorial Auction Protocol against False-Name Bids , 2000, AAAI/IAAI.

[4]  Jörg Denzinger,et al.  Evolutionary online learning of cooperative behavior with situation-action pairs , 2000, Proceedings Fourth International Conference on MultiAgent Systems.

[5]  Reid G. Smith,et al.  The Contract Net Protocol: High-Level Communication and Control in a Distributed Problem Solver , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Computers.

[6]  Matthias Fuchs,et al.  Experiments in learning prototypical situations for variants of the pursuit game , 1999 .

[7]  José M. Vidal,et al.  Teaching Multiagent Systems using RoboCup and Biter , 2002 .

[8]  Maria Fasli,et al.  Designing and Implementing E-market Games , 2005, CIG.

[9]  Jeffrey S. Rosenschein,et al.  Designing Conventions for Automated Negotiation , 1994, AI Mag..

[10]  Milind Tambe,et al.  Multiagent teamwork: analyzing the optimality and complexity of key theories and models , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[11]  Junichi Akita,et al.  RoboCup Jr.: RoboCup for edutainment , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[12]  N. Kuhn,et al.  Simulating Cooperative Transportation Companies , 1994 .

[13]  Iain D. Craig A new interpretation of the blackboard architecture , 1993 .