Gerstner Laboratory for Intelligent Decision Making and Control

Agent Technology Group

People Research Projects Partners Links

Currently, agent modelling, inter-agent communication, software integration, social intelligence, coalition formation, community monitoring and meta-reasoning issues are investigated in the group. Applied research focuses on design and development of multi-agent systems and on improving their collaborative behaviour. Three baseline models were developed in the group - ProPlanT (Production Planning Tool - agent based production planning system), eXPlanTech (FIPA compliant system for production planning and supply chain manaegment) and CPlanT (Multi-agent System for Humanitarian Relief Operation Planning

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must-see: eXPlanTech new site - including movies and running internert application |

AT Group People

	Faculty members, Researchers: Michal Pechoucek, Jaroslav barta, Ales Riha, Jiri Vokrinek, Petr Novak
	PhD students: Jiri Hodik, Rudolf Rada, Milan Rollo, Petr Charvat, Petr Slechta, Ladislav Bumbalek, Pavel Tichy, Filip Macurek

Research Projects

ExPlanTech - EC IST-Trial Project - Exploitation of Agent-Based Production Planning using the ProPlanT Technology, project no.: IST-1999-20171 CPlanT (Coalition Planning) - US AirForce Research Contract - Acquaintance Models in Operations Other Than War Coalition Formation, project contract no.: F61775-00-WE043 MASiC - US AirForce Research Contract - Multi-Agent Systems in Communication, project contract no.: F61775-99-WE099 ProPlanT - EUREKA PVS'98 project - Multi-Agent Technology for Project Oriented Production Planning, Industrial/Research Prototype, project n.: 1439 DISCIM - GL research project - Distributed Environment for Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Research Prototype 3BA - GL research Project - Formalisation of the Tri-Base Acquaintance Model in a Multi-Agent system HMS - Holonic Manufacturing Systems - colaboration with the HMS consortium

Research Activities

Industrial Application of Multi-Agent Systems - Principles and theories of multi-agent systems are applied on practical industrial problems, mainly of production planning and enterprise resource management. Two key areas of research are: ProPlanT multi-agent system pilot application in enterprises - Tesla TV (EUREKA), Modelarna Liaz (ExPlanTech), Unisoft (ExPlanTech) internet integration - ProPlanT internet integration, electronic commerce investigation Agents' Acquaintance Models - The concept of agents' mutual also for providing local communication security. (AFOR,EUREKA,ExPlanTech) Multi-Agent Meta-Reasoning - Meta-agent independently monitors the community behaviour and infers various types of generalisation. Induced knowledge is used for providing efficiency consideration suggestions and possible detection of intrusion into the community. Two key areas of research are: meta-agent monitoring (EUREKA) machine learning (AFOR) Meta-agent has been implemented within the ProPlanT framework and suitable machine learning techniques are investigated. Replanning - We investigate techniques and methods for intelligent re-planning of multi-agent course of actions caused by either malfunction of an agent or a community of agents or by handling priorities when planning within the community. Coalition Formation - This research initiative investigates possible application of distributed artificial intelligence fundamentals in the area of coalition formation and multi-agent planning. There are two application areas: fight position formation, flight coordination humanitarian aid simulation Apart from theories of shared planning and shared intention, the concept of meta-agent and tri-base acquaintance model will be applied. (AFOR) Other Projects - There are further research projects carried out within the group: Corba-Based Multi-Agent System - Java implementation of multi-agent system using CORBA services Market Driven Programming - Implementation of model of a multi-agent system for simulation and investigation of economical phenomena Migrating Agent - Implementation of an agent migrating within the Internet and collecting knowledge about the job market

Partners

Rockwell Automation, SAP, US Air Force Laboratory, UniSoft, University of Calgary, University de Savoie, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne), Tesla-TV,Modelarna Liaz