Topic
Contract Net Protocol
About: Contract Net Protocol is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 606 publications have been published within this topic receiving 13729 citations.
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04 Jun 2003
TL;DR: A class of collaborative Petri net (CTPN) is proposed to adaptively model the holonic manufacturing processes and to optimize the throughput or works in process to facilitate the computation of the cost function based on CTPN models.
Abstract: Holonic manufacturing system (HMS) is a paradigm based on cooperative multi-agent system theory to effectively configure resources to deal with uncertainties in today's manufacturing environment. Optimization of HMS is a challenging problem owing to the distributed multi-agent system architecture and sophisticated collaboration processes among agents. Direct application of contract net protocol is not feasible due to the lack of capabilities to model and compute the cost function of the complex production processes. This paper focuses on the development of a framework to optimize the performance of HMS by extending the contract net protocol with timed Petri nets. By combining the capability of collaboration and coordination offered by contract net protocol with the advantages of Petri net theory in modeling and analysis of complex production processes, we propose a class of collaborative Petri net (CTPN) to adaptively model the holonic manufacturing processes and to optimize the throughput or works in process. An algorithm is proposed to facilitate the computation of the cost function based on CTPN models.
3 citations
25 Jun 2008
TL;DR: A new negotiation mechanism independent of the domain properties in order to handle real-time goals is proposed based on the well-known Contract net Protocol and tested through simple scenarios.
Abstract: Agents and multi-agent systems constitute nowadays a very active field of research. This field is very multidisciplinary since it is sustained by Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Systems, Software Engineering, etc. In most agent applications, the autonomous components need to interact. They need to communicate in order to solve differences of opinion and conflicts of interest. They also need to work together or simply inform each other. It is however important to note that a lot of existing works do not take into account the agents' preferences. In addition, individual decisions in the multi-agent domain are rarely sufficient for producing optimal plans which satisfy all the goals. Therefore, agents need to cooperate to generate the best multi-agent plan through sharing tentative solutions, exchanging sub goals, or having other agents' goals to satisfy. In this paper, we propose a new negotiation mechanism independent of the domain properties in order to handle real-time goals. The mechanism is based on the well-known Contract net Protocol. Integrated Station of Production agents will be equipped with a sufficient behavior to carry out practical operations and simultaneously react to the complex problems caused by the dynamic scheduling in real situations. These agents express their preferences by using ELECTRE III method in order to solve differences. The approach is tested through simple scenarios.
3 citations
TL;DR: An agent- based simulation to investigate tasks allocation through the consideration of appropriate spatial strategies to deal with uncertainty in urban search and rescue (USAR) operation resulted in the optimization and increased flexibility of the allocation.
Abstract: . Task allocation in uncertainty conditions is a key problem for agents attempting to achieve harmony in disaster environments. This paper presents an agent- based simulation to investigate tasks allocation through the consideration of appropriate spatial strategies to deal with uncertainty in urban search and rescue (USAR) operation. The proposed method is presented in five phases: ordering existing tasks, finding coordinating agent, holding an auction, applying allocation strategies, and implementation and observation of environmental uncertainties. The methodology was evaluated in Tehran's District 1 for 6.6, 6.9, and 7.2 magnitude earthquakes. The simulation started by calculating the number of injured individuals, which was 28856, 73195 and 111463 people for each earthquake, respectively. The Simulations were performed for each scenario for a variety of rescuers (1000, 1500, 2000 rescuer). In comparison with contract net protocol (CNP), the standard time of rescue operations in the proposed approach includes at least 13% of improvement and the best percentage of recovery was 21 %. Interval uncertainty analysis and the comparison of the proposed strategies showed that an increase in uncertainty leads to an increased rescue time for CNP of 67.7 hours, and for strategies one to four an increased rescue time of 63.4, 63.2, 63.7, and 56.5 hours, respectively. Considering strategies in the task allocation process, especially spatial strategies, resulted in the optimization and increased flexibility of the allocation as well as conditions for fault tolerance and agent-based cooperation stability in USAR simulation system.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a new communication technique among agents in MAS, which combines the advantages of both previous methods and avoids their disadvantages, and applied it to Hospital Management System that uses Multi Agents Systems.
Abstract: Multi Agent System (MAS) play a central role in the field of distributed artificial intelligence. MAS' applications go from electronic commerce, aircraft maintenance and business process management to e mail filtering. One of the important features in Multi Agent System is the communication among agent. The communication methods enable cooperation and coordination of agents in the system. The standard and important one is the Contract Net Protocol. Also, Round Contract method is created to overcome the limitations of Contract Net Protocol. This paper proposed a new communication technique among agents in MAS. This technique combines the advantages of both previous methods and avoids their disadvantages. All these techniques are applied To Hospital Management System that uses Multi Agents Systems. There is a comparison among these methods according to their performance.
3 citations
25 Nov 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, a job-shop dynamic scheduling model based on multi-agent and the hybrid-genetic algorithm is proposed, where the allocation of the tasks and coordination have been solved by multiantenna consultations based on contract net protocol, then the tasks have been rescheduled by hybrid-GENetic algorithm in order to achieve global optimization.
Abstract: Aimed at the job-shop dynamic scheduling for agile manufacturing, genetic algorithms and heuristic rules are combined; a job-shop dynamic scheduling model based on multi-agent and the hybrid-genetic algorithm is proposed. The allocation of the tasks and coordination have been solved by multi-agent consultations based on contract net protocol, then the tasks have been rescheduled by hybrid-genetic algorithm in order to achieve global optimization. Finally, the effectiveness of this method is confirmed by simulation.
3 citations