Distributed Artificial Intelligence

Abstract : This report examines a number of advanced military information processing problems that entail computational tasks distributed over space. Communicational restrictions and other factors in these applications make it appropriate to consider networks of loosely coupled distributed artificial-intelligence (DAI) systems. Among the important conceptual difficulties of designing such networks is the problem of representing and using information about what one part of the network 'believes' about another part. We consider in some detail various aspects of this problem and briefly describe some potential solutions.