Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a relatively new computational modeling paradigm that is markedly useful in studying complexsystems composed of a large number of interacting entities with many degrees of freedom. Other names for ABM are individual‐based modeling (IBM)or multi‐agent systems (MAS). Physicists often use the term micro‐simulation or interaction‐based computing.
The basic idea of ABM is to construct the computational counterpart of a conceptual model of a system under study on the basis of discreteentities (agents) with some properties and behavioral rules, and then to simulate them in a computer to mimic the real phenomena.
The definition of agent is somewhat controversial as witnessed by the fact that the models found in the literature adopt an extremely heterogeneousrationale. The agent is an autonomous entity having its own internal state reflecting its perception of the environment and interacting with other entitiesaccording to more or less sophisticated rules. In...
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Castiglione, F. (2009). Agent Based Modeling and Simulation, Introduction to. In: Meyers, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_13
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