Conflict Management in Sensible Agent-based Systems

In this paper, an approach of conflict classification and detection is proposed in a domain independent framework for conflict management, and deployed in Sensible Agent Architectures. Sensible agents are agents that operate in a multi-agent based system with the ability to dynamically adapt their level of autonomy. Conflicts are classified as goal, plan and belief conflicts. It is shown that such a classification is useful in developing effective conflict detection and resolution mechanisms. The conflict classification and detection algorithm developed in this paper is used in the conflict resolution module – the Conflict Resolution Advisor, of Sensible Agents. An example illustrates the application of this scheme to a simple shop floor routing example.