The motion of a group of nonholonomic mobile agents is synchronized using local control laws. This synchronization strategy is inspired by the early flocking model proposed by Reynolds [17] and following work [22, 8]. The control laws presented ensure that all agent headings and speeds converge asymptotically to the same value and collisions between the agents are avoided. The stability of this...

In this paper, a number of problems of conventional automated software engineering support environments are described. These problems are related to the functional approach these environments take, the lack of initiative these systems exhibit and the causal connection gap between design information and the operational entity. As an alternative, we suggest an autonomous agent approach. Each arti...

Autonomous agents are being increasingly used in a wide range of applications. Most applications involve or require multiple agents operating in complex environments and, over time, conflicts inevitably occur among them. Negotiation is the predominant process for resolving conflicts. Recent interest in electronic commerce has also given increased importance to negotiation. This paper presents a...

In this paper we present concepts and their relations that are necessary for mod-eling autonomous agents in an environment that is governed by some (social) norms. We divide the norms over three levels: the private level the contract level and the convention level. We show how deontic logic can be used to model the concepts and how the theory of speech acts can be used to model the generation o...

An intelligent agent situated in an environment needs to know the preferred states it is expected to achieve or maintain so that it can work towards achieving or maintaining them. We refer to all these preferred states as “preferences”. The preferences an agent has selected to bring about at a given time are called “goals”. This selection of preferences as goals is generally referred to as “goa...

RALF SALOMON AI Lab, Computer Science Department, University of Zürich Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland FAX: +41-1-363 00 35; Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT : Artificial neural networks have been successfully used in many technical applications. They are also important tools for the control of autonomous agents. The major goal of research on autonomous agents is to study ...

Commitments are a powerful representation for modeling multiagent interactions. Previous approaches have considered the semantics of commitments and how to check compliance with them. However, these approaches do not capture some of the subtleties that arise in real-life applications, e.g., e-commerce, where contracts and institutions have implicit temporal references. The present paper develop...

Space missions have evolved considerably in the last fifty years in both complexity and ambition. In order to enable this continued improvement in the scientific and commercial return of space missions new control systems are needed that can manage complex combinations of state of the art hardware with a minimum of human interaction. Distributed multi-agent systems are one approach to controlli...

Adaptive autonomy enables agents operating in an environment to change, or adapt, their autonomy levels by relying on tasks executed by others. Moreover, tasks could be delegated between agents, and as a result decision-making concerning them could also be delegated. In this work, adaptive autonomy is modeled through the willingness of agents to cooperate in order to complete abstract tasks, th...