V.S. Subrahmanian

University of Maryland

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IMPACT: Future Directions(years 3 and 4)

21999 IMPACT Workshop

Research Directions “Smart” Agent Development:

Implementing Temporal and Uncertain Agent Reasoning Agent Security Toolkit Spatial Agent Programs Specialized agent activities: planning, learning .

MultiAgent Development Environment (MADE) How can multiple agents developed in AgentDE work together? How can such “working together” be configured within IMPACT? Study interaction protocols and properties of multiagent applics.

Applications: Full agentization of CIP Alert Application Full-fledged logistics application Full fledged E-store application

31999 IMPACT Workshop

Implementing Temporal and Uncertain Agent Reasoning

DONE TO DATE In year 2, we proposed

temporal agent programs (TAPs), and probabilistic agent programs (PAPs).

Developed a semantics for them and developed algorithms to compute TAPs.

TO BE DONE IN YEARS 3-4 Extend AgentDE to handle

temporal agent programs. Implement TAP status set

computation algorithms. Develop probabilistic status set

computation algorithms and prove correctness theorems.

Extend AgentDE to handle probabilistic agent programs.

Implement PAP status set computation algorithms.

41999 IMPACT Workshop

Agent Security Toolkit In year 2, we proposed a theoretical framework for

agents to articulate their security requirements and “protect” themselves from security violations.

AgentDE will include an Agent Security Toolkit (AST). AST will contain the following capabilities:

agent approximation methods (how does agent A approximate agent B and update its approximation?)

agent security specification programs (what does agent A want to protect from an arbitrary agent B?)

history logging coupling agent programs and security structures. security preservation algorithms

51999 IMPACT Workshop

Spatial Agent Programs Agents must have the ability to reason about space-time. We plan to develop the notion of a spatio-temporal

agent program (STAP). Syntax of STAPs Formal semantics of STAPs, extending TAPs Coupling STAP implementations to scalable spatial data

structures. Developing STAP-feasible status set computation algorithms

and proving their correctness. Implementing STAPs as an extension of the AgentDE.

61999 IMPACT Workshop

Planning agents Many (but not all) agents need

to plan. Planning capabilities can be

incorporated within agents in many ways: Planning can be viewed as an

IMPACT action. IMPACT action rule heads can

be extended to include:– hierarchical task networks

in rule heads instead of single actions.

– Sets of actions with attached temporal constraints.

We plan to: develop a semantics for

agent programs with these two modes of planning

study the complexity and expressive power of these two alternatives

develop implementation methods and conducted experiments

Build applications of multiagent planning in the areas of: noncombatant evacuation

ops logistics planning

71999 IMPACT Workshop

MultiAgent Development Environment (MADE)

AgentDE allows agent developers to build agents that interact with other agents.

However, when a set of interacting agents are defined, one by one, it is difficult to evaluate how this multiagent application will behave over time.

MultiAgentDE will contain the MultiAgentDE will contain the theory and algorithms needed theory and algorithms needed by agent developers to ensure by agent developers to ensure that their multiagent that their multiagent application preserves a variety application preserves a variety of important application of important application specific conditions.specific conditions.

WORK TO BE DONE Develop a language to query

a multiagent application built in IMPACT. Querying over alternative

“future” worlds Evaluation of integrity

constraints over all possible futures.

Develop techniques to implement this language.

Implement this language, and define tools to allow agent developers to interact with their application.

81999 IMPACT Workshop

IMPACT Agent Library Consists of a set of COTS-tools based agents that

different (more sophisticated) civilian and military applications may want to extend.

“Database” Agents: Oracle, Access, ObjectStore. Spreadsheet Agents: Excel. “Media” Agents: Image, Video, Free text. Language Agents: Machine translation agents. Planning Agents: SHOP Hierarchical Task Network

Agents. GIS and Map Management Agents. Web Topic Agents: Weather, Map, etc.

91999 IMPACT Workshop

Applications: Agent-based Combat Information Processor (AbCIP)

CIP is currently a set of servers. We propose to make each of these servers into an

IMPACT Agent. We propose to develop new agents providing a wide

variety of “active” CIP-monitoring and analysis services. Users register conditions of interest. Users describe actions to be taken when the conditions of

interest satisfy some conditions. The CIP Multiagent application will include a mix of CIP-agents, GIS

agents, database agents, and planning agents.

Preliminary work Started. Demo in Room 2120

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1999 IMPACT Workshop

Applications: Multi Agent Logistics System (MALS)

Current IMPACT agents have the ability to access large scale logistics database and trigger actions.

MALS will support the “track inventory status => create plan for resupply => execute plan => track plan” cycle.

MALS will include a mix of: Current logistics inventory agents Excel agents Financial tracking and ordering agents Planning agents GIS Agents

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1999 IMPACT Workshop

Conclusions AgentDE 1.0 is near-ready for

the deployment of single and multiagent applications.

We expect to provide “beta” versions of AgentDE 1.0 (without documentation) for testing to ARL in Sep. 1999 and with documentation in Nov. 1999.

AgentDE 2.0 => Temporal/Spatial

AgentDE 3.0 => Probabilistic, planning.

AgentDE 4.0 => Security

Multiagent Development Environment (MADE) Query Language Algorithms Implementation

Applications AbCIP MALS Electronic store