Handling temporal constraints in interaction protocols for intelligent multi-agent systems

This research focuses on handling temporal constraints in interaction protocols for multi-agent systems. There is a dire need of standardized interaction protocols that can be used to handle timing aspects in real-time multi-agent system’s negotiation. The most commonly used Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents Protocol lacks the appropriate specification in this regard. In real-time systems timing constraint is a major concern for all of its tasks and goals. Agents require real-time responses and must eliminate the possibility of massive communication between them. The timing specification of these real-time multi-agent systems in which agents communicate with each other to achieve their goals within deadline will be of great value for their correct functioning. A high degree of dependability and predictability is expected from real-time software agents. The basis of our work is the standardized interaction protocols to support the communication between agents in real-time environment and this is possible via message passing. By incorporation of welldefined timing parameters in Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents performatives, we have enabled them to be used in any realtime multi-agent’s communication. We demonstrate the usage and effectiveness of our proposed real-time performatives using a case study of monitoring boats in marine reserves in which the agents interact with each other to accomplish their goals.