In the paper we discuss variable and generative forms of autonomy. Variable autonomy is discussed in terms of the practicalities in designing autonomous agents, dealing as it does with the notion of degrees of autonomy and hence issues of agent control. The major part of the paper discusses an absolute, theoretically grounded notion of autonomy: the ability to generate one’s own goals. This the...

Metareasoning is an important capability for autonomous systems, particularly for those being deployed on long duration missions. An agent with increased self-observation and the ability to control itself in response to changing environments will be more capable in achieving its goals. This is essential for long-duration missions where system designers will not be able to, theoretically or prac...

Thinking about Autonomy Strictly speaking, though, the term “autonomous system” is a misnomer. Autonomy is not a property of a system, but rather the result of an interaction between the system, the task, and the situation. No system—and, for that matter, no person—can perform autonomously in every task and situation. On the other hand, even the simplest machine can function autonomously if the...

An overview of the NASA Ames Research Center Autonomous Rotorcraft Project (ARP) is presented. The project brings together several technologies to address NASA and US Army autonomous vehicle needs, including a reactive planner for mission planning and execution, control system design incorporating a detailed understanding of the platform dynamics, and health monitoring and diagnostics. A candid...

We study the resource-bounded autonomous agents acting in complex multi-agent and multi-task environments. In particular, we investigate various models of the agent action selection in such environments. Designing such autonomous decision making agents for non-episodic and partially observable dynamic environments is particularly challenging, due to a high-level demand such environments pose in...

This thesis is a comprehensive study of collaborative problem solving, its advantages and pitfalls, but mainly its improvement by autonomous dynamic reconfiguration. Autonomous dynamic reconfiguration deals with two common problems in collaborative problem solving – high communication effort and poor problem solving results because of restricted overview. The main idea of autonomous dynamic rec...

This paper describes how multi-agent system technology can be used as the underpinning platform for voltage control in power systems. In this study, some FACTS (flexible AC transmission systems) devices are properly designed to coordinate their decisions and actions in order to provide a coordinated secondary voltage control mechanism based on multi-agent theory. Each device here is modeled as ...

Autonomous agents are systems capable of autonomous decision making in real-time environments. Computation is a valuable resource for such decision making, and yet the amount of computation that an autonomous agent may carry out will be limited. It follows that an agent must be equipped with a mechanism that enables it to make the best possible use of the computational resources at its disposal...

In this paper, we argue that allowing self-interested agents to activate social institutions during runtime can improve the robustness (i.e., stability, reliability, or scalability) of open multiagent systems (MAS). Referring to sociological theory, we consider institutions to be rules that need to be activated and adopted by the agent population during runtime and propose a framework for self-...

This paper reports on an autonomous agent simulation of infant attachment behaviour. The behaviours simulated have been observed in home environments and in a controlled laboratory procedure called the Strange Situation Experiment. The Avoidant, Secure and Ambivalent styles of behaviour seen in these studies are outlined, and then abstracted to their core elements to act as a specification of r...