Making Self-Organising Adaptive Multiagent Systems Work

Abstract

The context of computational entities is rapidly changing: the development of artificial systems such as the Internet, ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing and autonomic computing mean that these entities have to cope with emergent phenomena arising in their environment. Rather than attempt to eliminate such emergence, we start to explore how this might be deliberately harnessed. That is, address how we might seek to engineer MAS with desirable emergent properties. To do this we discuss what emergence might mean in the context of MAS, and consider a class of such systems: Adaptive MAS (AMAS) that might be used to bring about such emergence. After reviewing the theoretical adequacy of AMAS systems we go on to sketch an approach to making them: namely by focusing the design effort on equipping each agent with responses to the non-cooperative situations it may encounter. This approach is illustrated in a simple but effective flood forecasting system called STAFF. Finally we discuss the expected benefits and difficulties inherent in this approach and the likely way forward.