Communication in multiagent systems : agent communication languages and conversation policies

331 Pages·2003·7 MB·English

by  Huget, Marc-Philippe

Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 2650
EditedbyJ.G.CarbonellandJ.Siekmann
Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science
3
Berlin
Heidelberg
NewYork
Barcelona
HongKong
London
Milan
Paris
Tokyo
Marc-Philippe Huget (Ed.)
Communication in
Multiagent Systems
Agent Communication Languages
and Conversation Policies
1 3
SeriesEditors
JaimeG.Carbonell,CarnegieMellonUniversity,Pittsburgh,PA,USA
Jo¨rgSiekmann,UniversityofSaarland,Saarbru¨cken,Germany
VolumeEditor
Marc-PhilippeHuget
UniversityofLiverpool,DepartmentofComputerScience
AgentApplications,ResearchandTechnologyGroup
ChadwickBuilding,PeachStreet,L697ZFLiverpool,UK
E-mail:[email protected]
Cataloging-in-PublicationDataappliedfor
AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress.
BibliographicinformationpublishedbyDieDeutscheBibliothek.
DieDeutscheBibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie;
detailedbibliographicdataisavailableintheInternetat<http://dnb.ddb.de>.
CRSubjectClassification(1998):I.2.11,I.2,C.2.4,C.2,D.2,F.3
ISSN0302-9743
ISBN3-540-40385-XSpringer-VerlagBerlinHeidelbergNewYork
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.Allrightsarereserved,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialis
concerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,re-useofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting,
reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherway,andstorageindatabanks.Duplicationofthispublication
orpartsthereofispermittedonlyundertheprovisionsoftheGermanCopyrightLawofSeptember9,1965,
initscurrentversion,andpermissionforusemustalwaysbeobtainedfromSpringer-Verlag.Violationsare
liableforprosecutionundertheGermanCopyrightLaw.
Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelbergNewYork
amemberofBertelsmannSpringerScience+BusinessMediaGmbH
http://www.springer.de
©Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2003
PrintedinGermany
Typesetting:Camera-readybyauthor,dataconversionbyMarkusRichter,Heidelberg
Printedonacid-freepaper SPIN:10937761 06/3142 543210
Preface
Agents in multiagent systems are concurrent autonomous entities that need to coor-
dinate and to cooperate so as to perform their tasks (buying items on the Internet or
retrieving information,for instance). These coordinationand cooperationtasks might
beachievedthroughcommunication.Communication(alsocalled‘interaction’bysome
authors)representsoneofthemainelementsinmultiagentsystems. Withoutcommu-
nication,agentswillnotbeabletoexchangeinformationorcoordinatewitheachother.
Research on communication has been an established field for at least 20 years and
moved from early work on protocols to direct agent communication, to communica-
tion that encompasses some human conversation patterns. Between these two points,
severalareasareconsideredinagentcommunication:agentcommunicationlanguages,
coordination,argumentation,negotiationanddialoguegames,tonameafew.
Thefirstideawheneditingthisbookwastobringtogetherseveralpapersondiffer-
entareasofagentcommunication,thusofferingasnapshotofthedomaintonewcomers.
Asaconsequence,thebookisdividedintothreeparts.
As background,we present three seminal papers in the agent communicationdo-
main:thepaperwrittenbyCohenandPerraultaboutthetheoryofspeechacts,which
rootsthe workin FIPA ACL semantics;the paperwrittenby Singhondifferentagent
communicationlanguages;and,finally,thepaperwrittenbyDavisandSmithdescrib-
ing the Contract Net protocol which is certainly the Escherichia coli in the domain
ofcommunication,andisthemostwell-knownprotocolandtheonemostusedinthe
literature.
The second part of this book is the main one, and depicts current work in agent
communication.Thechaptersareclassifiedinclusters.Thefirstclusterisaboutagent
communication.Thesecondclusterpresentsseveralusesofcommunicationsuchasco-
ordinationandargumentation.Thethirdclusterfocusesonprotocols.Asstatedabove,
protocols are no longer the only approach to represent agent communication;the re-
mainingclusterdescribesdialoguegamesandconversationalagents.
Finally,thelastpartofthebookconsidersthefutureofagentcommunication.
Some chapters were accepted papers at the AAMAS 2002 Workshop on Agent
Communication Languages and Conversation Policies (ACL 2002) that I co-chaired
withFrankDignumandJean-LucKoning.
My hope is that this book will be useful for newcomers and students in learning
agentcommunication.
February2003 Marc-PhilippeHuget
AgentARTGroup
DepartmentofComputerScience
UniversityofLiverpool
UK
Table of Contents
PartI:Background
ElementsofaPlan-BasedTheoryofSpeechActs .......................... 1
PhilipR.CohenandC.RaymondPerrault
AgentCommunicationLanguages:RethinkingthePrinciples................. 37
MunindarP.Singh
NegotiationasaMetaphorforDistributedProblemSolving .................. 51
RandallDavisandReidG.Smith
PartII:CurrentTrends
VerificationandComplianceTesting .................................... 98
FrankGuerinandJeremyPitt
ProcessAlgebraforAgentCommunication:AGeneralSemanticApproach ..... 113
RogierM.vanEijk,FrankS.deBoer,WiebevanderHoek,
andJohn-JulesCh.Meyer
HierarchicalInformationCombinationinLarge-ScaleMultiagent
ResourceManagement ............................................... 129
OsherYadgar,SaritKraus,andCharlesL.Ortiz,Jr.
APerspectiveonMultiagentCoordinationModels ......................... 146
LauraBocchiandPaoloCiancarini
Argumentation-BasedCommunicationbetweenAgents ..................... 164
SimonParsonsandPeterMcBurney
InteractionProtocolEngineering ....................................... 179
Marc-PhilippeHugetandJean-LucKoning
AnOrganizationalApproachtotheDesignofInteractionProtocols............ 194
JuanManuelSerranoandSaschaOssowski
DesignAgentInteractionasaServicetoAgents ........................... 209
Marc-PhilippeHuget
AFIPACompliantGoalDelegationProtocol.............................. 223
FedericoBergenti,GiovanniRimassa,MatteoSomacher,
andLuisMiguelBotelho
CommunicationforGoalDirectedAgents................................ 239
MehdiDastani,JeroenvanderHam,andFrankDignum
VIII TableofContents
WhenAreTwoProtocolstheSame? .................................... 253
MarkW.Johnson,PeterMcBurney,andSimonParsons
DialogueGameProtocols............................................. 269
PeterMcBurneyandSimonParsons
RequestforActionReconsideredasaDialogueGameBasedonCommitments... 284
BrahimChaib-draa,Marc-Andre´Labrie,andNicolasMaudet
ComputationalModelofBelievableConversationalAgents .................. 300
CatherinePelachaudandMassimoBilvi
PartIII:Future
TheFutureofAgentCommunication.................................... 318
MunindarP.Singh
AuthorIndex ...................................................... 323
M.-P. Huget (Ed.): Communications in Multiagent Systems, LNAI 2650, pp. 1-36, 2003.
© Cognitive Science, 1979, 177-212, 3(1)
2 Philip R. Cohen and C.Raymond Perrault