Requester vs. Helper-Initiated Protocols for Mutual Assistance in Agent Teamwork

An interaction protocol for bidirectional deliberation on direct help in agent teamwork.

“…In the last two decades, there has been a research interest in helpful behavior in agent teamwork, which specifies mechanisms for assistance between teammates by executing actions or providing information [Itoh, 1991, Miceli et al, 1994, Yen et al, 2004, Cao et al, 2005, Fan et al, 2005, Kamar et al, 2009, Polajnar et al, 2012 [Nalbandyan et al, 2013]. MAP is based on a distributed decision making mechanism, called bilateral distributed agreement (BDA), in which the deci sion on performing a help act is made jointly by both requester and helper agents, in contrast with unilateral approaches presented in [Kamar et al, 2009].…”

“…Agent interaction protocols specify interactive behavior of individual agents dealing with each other. Nalbandyan [2011] and Polajnar et al [2012] introduce the M utual Assis tance Protocol (MAP), with its subsequent elaboration in [Nalbandyan et al, 2013], which specifies a direct help mechanism for an agent team with heterogeneous skill profiles, situated in a dynamically changing environment. The mechanism is based on a bilateral distributed agreement in which both requester and helper agents jointly decide on performing a help act, in contrast with unilateral approaches as in [Ka-mar et al, 2009], in which only one side of the help transaction makes the decision.…”

“…In the requester-initiated approach, the opening message of the help transaction is a request for help; in the helper-initiated approach, the opening message is an offer of help. Simulation experiments in [Nalbandyan et al, 2013] show th a t the Requester In this thesis, we approach this research question by designing new protocols, developing simulation models for them, exploring their impact on team performance through simulation experiments, and adjusting our model parameters for optimum performance. We study agent interaction protocols for direct help in the context of a board game microworld, inspired by the Colored IVails game [Gal et al, 2010], and used in previous studies of MAP [Polajnar et al, 2012, Nalbandyan et al, 2013.…”

“…Simulation experiments in [Nalbandyan et al, 2013] show th a t the Requester In this thesis, we approach this research question by designing new protocols, developing simulation models for them, exploring their impact on team performance through simulation experiments, and adjusting our model parameters for optimum performance. We study agent interaction protocols for direct help in the context of a board game microworld, inspired by the Colored IVails game [Gal et al, 2010], and used in previous studies of MAP [Polajnar et al, 2012, Nalbandyan et al, 2013. For modeling and simulation, we use the Agent Interaction Modeling Simulator (AIMS) framework introduced by Alemi et al [2014], which allows concurrent simulation of multiple teams in identical dynamic environments.…”

“…RIAMAP and HIAMAP are introduced in [Nalbandyan et al, 2013] as two ad vanced variations of MAP, which outperform the basic MAP version and demonstrate complementary behaviors over the param eter space. In this thesis, first we introduce RIAMAP* and HIAMAP*.…”