Abstract
Goal is a multi-agent programming language based on the BDI paradigm. It is a logic-based language that supports modular agent design based on established software engineering principles and interaction with environments using an environment interface standard (EIS). Goal recently won the multi-agent programming contest (MAPC), where two teams consisting of ten agents play against each other in order to explore and defend occupied territory on a distant planet. The MAPC game is a complex and dynamic environment that supports EIS and thus facilitates easy connection of a multi-agent system (MAS) to an environment that is remotely run. We describe the design of the multi-agent solution that won the competition, the EIS interface that was used, and the MAPC scenario.
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Notes
- 1.
The Goal agent programming language does not commit to Prolog or any other computational logic in particular (cf. [8]). In principle, other languages such as Answer Set Programming or ontology languages such as OWL might also be used.
- 2.
This can be done, for example, by using the fact that Goal attaches numbers to names in order to create unique names for each agent.
- 3.
In many areas of competitive activity, the theory is that if you can cycle through the OODA loop faster than your opponent, you have the advantage.
- 4.
- 5.
It is often argued that path planning is better delegated to another software component that is not programmed using a logic-based agent programming language . The HactarV2 agents, however, use Prolog for path planning and implement variants of Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to recognize the effort the students put into developing the HactarV2 MAS and their help in explaining their code while writing this chapter. The chapter is partly based on the MAPC paper for the HactarV2 MAS [4].
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Hindriks, K.V., Dix, J. (2014). GOAL: A Multi-agent Programming Language Applied to an Exploration Game. In: Shehory, O., Sturm, A. (eds) Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54432-3_12
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