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Hierarchical model and communication by signs, signals, and symbols in multi-agent environments

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Book cover Distributed Software Agents and Applications (MAAMAW 1994)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1069))

Abstract

This paper describes a general framework for designing agents for a multiagent systems. A hierarchical agent model is described, structuring an agent according to different types of situations. It has to deal with: routines, familiar and unfamiliar situations. Then, an idea is developped for the coordination between agents: agents should prefer low levels (i.e. routine and familiar situations) than the high level (i.e. unfamiliar situations). The reason is that low levels are fast, effortless and are propitious for coordinated activities between agents, whereas the high level is slow, laborious and can lead to conflicts between agents. To achieve this, we develop the idea of using communication by signs and signals (and not by symbols) in order to allow agents to rely on their low levels. Finally, implementation and experiments demonstrated, on some scenarios of urban traffic, the applicability of concepts developed in this article.

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John W. Perram Jean-Pierre Müller

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Chaib-draa, B., Levesque, P. (1996). Hierarchical model and communication by signs, signals, and symbols in multi-agent environments. In: Perram, J.W., Müller, JP. (eds) Distributed Software Agents and Applications. MAAMAW 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1069. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61157-6_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61157-6_28

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61157-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68335-3

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