Addressing Constraint Failures in Agent Interaction Protocol

The field of multi-agent systems shifts attention from one particular agent to a society of agents; hence the interactions between agents in the society become critical towards the achievement of their goals. We assume that the interactions are managed via an agent protocol which enables agents to coordinate their actions in order to handle the dependencies that exist between their activities. An agent's failure to comply with the constraints attached within the protocol might cause a brittle protocol to fail. To address this problem, a constraint relaxation approach is applied using a distributed protocol language called the Lightweight Coordination Calculus (LCC). This paper describes the design and implementation of a constraint relaxation module to be integrated within the LCC framework. The working of this module is later illustrated using a scenario involving the ordering and configuration of a computer between the customer and vendor agents.

[1]  Patrice Boizumault,et al.  Implementing Constraint Relaxation over Finite Domains Using Assumption-Based Truth Maintenance Systems , 1995, Over-Constrained Systems.

[2]  Gerhard Weiß,et al.  Cognition, Sociability, and Constraints , 2000, Balancing Reactivity and Social Deliberation in Multi-Agent Systems.

[3]  Bo Chen,et al.  A Generic Formal Framework for Multi-agent Interaction Protocols , 2004 .

[4]  Agostino Poggi,et al.  Multiagent Systems , 2006, Intelligenza Artificiale.

[5]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  Agents That Reason and Negotiate by Arguing , 1998, J. Log. Comput..

[6]  Fadzil Hassan,et al.  Constraint Relaxation to Reduce Brittleness of Distributed Agent pPotocols , 2004 .

[7]  David Stuart Robertson,et al.  Multi-agent Coordination as Distributed Logic Programming , 2004, ICLP.

[8]  David Stuart Robertson,et al.  A Lightweight Coordination Calculus for Agent Systems , 2004, DALT.

[9]  Jeffrey M. Bradshaw,et al.  What Is a Conversation Policy? , 2000, Issues in Agent Communication.

[10]  Nardine Osman,et al.  Addressing Constraint Failures in Distributed Dialogue Protocols , 2003 .

[11]  Manuela M. Veloso,et al.  Bumping strategies for the multiagent agreement problem , 2005, AAMAS '05.

[12]  Evelina Lamma,et al.  Specification and Verification of Agent Interaction using Social Integrity Constraints , 2004, LCMAS.

[13]  Gerhard Weiss,et al.  Multiagent Systems , 1999 .

[14]  Geber L. Ramalho,et al.  Bilateral Negotiation Model for Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce , 2005 .

[15]  K. P. Sycara.  Multiagent systems : Special issue on agents , 1998 .

[16]  Geber Ramalho,et al.  Bilateral Negotiation for Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce , 2000, AMEC.

[17]  H. Van Dyke Parunak,et al.  The Role of Roles , 2003, J. Object Technol..

[18]  H. Van Dyke Parunak,et al.  Modeling Agents and their Environment: The Communication Environment , 2003, J. Object Technol..

[19]  Marc Esteva,et al.  On the Formal Specifications of Electronic Institutions , 2001, AgentLink.

[20]  Marc Esteva,et al.  On the formal specification of electronic institutions , 2001 .

[21]  Thom W. Frühwirth,et al.  Theory and Practice of Constraint Handling Rules , 1998, J. Log. Program..

[22]  Chris Walton,et al.  Flexible Multi-Agent Protocols , 2003 .