Principles for Dynamic Multi-agent Organizations
Proceedings of the 5th Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi Agents: Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Solving inaccessibility in multi-agent systems by mobile middle-agents
Multiagent and Grid Systems
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Brokers are used in many multi-agent systems for locating agents, for routing and sharing information, for managing the system, and for legal purposes, as independent third parties. However, these multi-agent systems can be incapacitated and rendered non-functional when the brokers become inaccessible due to failures such as machine crashes, network breakdowns, and process failures that can occur in any distributed software system. We propose that the theory of teamwork can be used to create robust brokered architectures that can recover from broker failures, and we present the Adaptive Agent Architecture (AAA) to show the feasibility of this approach. The AAA brokers form a team with a joint commitment to serve any agent that registers with the broker team as long as the agent remains registered with the team. This commitment enables the brokers to substitute for each other when needed. A multi-agent system based on the AAA can continue to work despite broker failures as long as there is at least one functional broker in the system. Another team commitment enables the brokers to start new brokers and recruit them to the broker team. As a result, an AAA-based multi-agent system can maintain a specified number of functional brokers in the system despite broker failures, thus effectively becoming a self-healing system. Teamwork is explained in terms of the theory of joint intentions. The previous theory assumes that team members remain in a team as long as the team exists. We extend the theory of joint intentions to allow dynamic but persistent broker teams whose members can change with time. In particular, we introduce the notion of joint commitment to a team wherein the individuals are committed to the team as an entity rather than to the members that constitute the team. We present a logical analysis of the AAA and show that the AAA brokers have the required individual commitments that result in robust behavior when the brokers act rationally.