Inter-Agent Communication in Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

The oil and gas industry experience an increased dependency on IT and par- ticular software based capabilities to achieve its business objectives. Core business processes such as exploration, well construction, production optimization and oper- ations are all fueled by software and information technology. In coming years we will see that software will fill more and more advanced features, including central control functions in autonomous and collaborative robots and it is believed that agent technology may be of use in this scenario. The primary reason for this is the practical benefit from goal oriented systems is a simplification of the human-machine interface. A goal oriented system is able to communicate and react to events in its environment in context of their goals. This is the primary driver for autonomous systems: simplifying and securing operation of machines in an unstructured / highly dynamic environment. Inter-agent communication is an important aspect of agent software, as it helps in the process of decision-making, be it an individual decision or even group decision- making. It also enables agents to share its beliefs and desires among each other. In this thesis I will look at possible models for collaboration and coordination of autonomous robots, and how this can be addressed through the use of software agents. To do this a multi-agent solution for controlling Lego Mindstorms robots has been developed in cooperation with Rune Johansen. The solution is based on three Lego robots operation on a line-based grid. One robot is set to explore the grid, finding object, and sharing this information (beliefs) with a second robot that is responsible for collecting and delivering these objects to a robot that sorts these object according to color. The solution enables investigation in relation to intelligent software agents combined with autonomous robot systems, such as inter-agent communication and coordination. The agent system is developed using the Prometheus methodology for the design and the JACK Intelligent Agents framework for the implementation. Regular Java is used combined with the LeJos - Java For Mindstorms framework to implement the robot side of the system.