Situation agents: agent-based externalized steering logic

We present a simple and intuitive method for encapsulating part of agents’ steering and coordinating abilities into a new class of agents, called situation agents. Situation agents have all the abilities of typical agents. In addition, they can influence the steering decisions of any agent, including other situation agents, within their sphere of influence. Encapsulating steering logic into moving agents is a powerful abstraction which provides more flexibility and efficiency than traditional informed environment approaches, and works with many of the current steering methodologies. We demonstrate our proposed approach in a number of challenging scenarios. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.