External Coordination Media in Capacity-Constrained Multiagent Systems

Abstract

Our goal is to understand limitations of simplicity of knowledge structures and reasoning processes in Multiagent Systems. Therefore, we propose a framework that integrates external storage media and a capacity-constrained Multiagent System. Agents can store knowledge internally and on external storage media located in an environment. In some cases, agents either have to forget or to store knowledge externally due to limited internal memory. We define notions of suitable knowledge and let agents learn in the context of an iterative partitioning task problem. Using basic knowledge structures and a simple k-Nearest-Neighbor approach, we evaluate the role of limited internal memory in conjunction with strategic positioning of storage media and knowledge items. We also investigate dependencies between communication, internal memory size, frequently changing settings, and externally stored items. The results show that externally and strategically stored simple knowledge can support agents' reasoning processes. The approach is robust even in highly dynamic settings with small memory and without inter-agent communication.

Region-Based Heuristics for an Iterative Partitioning Problem in Multiagent Systems

“…The local heuristic developed in this work is based on a framework that incorporates external storage media in the reasoning process of a capacityconstrained multiagent systems (MAS) (Kemmerich and Kleine Büning, 2010a). Knowledge of agents is stored on passive external storage media (SM) that are located within the environment.…”

“…In that context, environments as first class abstractions in MAS to support coordination, cooperation, and interaction between agents recently gain an increasing interest (Parunak and Weyns, 2007). Figure 1 illustrates the considered MAS which, besides using a grid environment, is basically in a line with (Kemmerich and Kleine Büning, 2010a). It consists of a set of agents A = {a 1 , .…”

“…In this section we thus introduce a local algorithm for sparse environments that approximates ETS-Target-Regions. Therefore, we use so-called storage media for coordination (Kemmerich and Kleine Büning, 2010a). Storage media (SM) are located at fixed positions in the environment and can be used by agents to store information externally.…”