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.

On multi-robot cooperation based on MAS and sensor information

Abstract: Multi-robot cooperation is one of hotspots in research on robotics and artificial intelligence currently. To solve the problem of task allocation in multi-robot system, a pyramid-like hybrid control architecture based on centralized control and distributed control is applied to accomplish multi-robot cooperation in task level. When robots received the information provided by sensors, the task was distributed according to Contract Net Protocol. Finally multi-robot cooperation was accomplished. The simulation of multi-robot tracking and formation experiments in player/stage platform showed that the algorithm is effective.

On wireless sensor networks collaboration based on an extended contract net protocol

Abstract: A collaboration approach based on an extended contract net protocol for wireless sensor networks(WSN) is presented,in which the trust degree,threshold,and priority are introduced into the classical contract net protocol.The extended contract net protocol reduces the communications consumption and balances the energy load among all nodes.To assure the correctness,completeness and reliability of the extended contract net protocol,object-oriented petri nets are employed to model it.Moreover,the characteristics of the extended contract net protocol are analyzed and verified by using the well-established analysis methods and supporting tools of Petri nets.Simulation results demonstrate that the extended contract net protocol effectively prolongs the network lifetime,improves the energy consumption efficiency,and increases the accomplished tasks.

Analysis of cooperation and competition in flexible supply chain network based on multi-agent simulation

Abstract: In this research, a multi-agent simulation model with the application of contract net protocol is developed to analyze the cooperation and competition in flexible supply chain networks and investigate the flexibility's impact on the performance of these networks. And it is verified that the complex supply chain network economy such as industrial district stems partly from the flexible small-and-medium-sized firm subcontracting networks.

Adaptive manager-side control policy in contract net protocol for massively multi-agent systems

Abstract: We describe a new adaptive manager-side control policy for the contract net protocol for a massively multi-agent system (MMAS). To improve overall performance of MMAS, tasks must be allocated to appropriate agents. From this viewpoint, a number of negotiation protocols were proposed in the MAS context, but most assume a small-scale, unbusy environment. We previously reported that, using contract net protocol (CNP), the overall efficiency could improve by an adequate control of degree of fluctuation in the awarding phase depending on the state of MMAS. In this paper, we propose the method to estimate these states from the bid values, which have hitherto not been used effectively. Then the manager-side policy flexibly and autonomously with some degree of fluctuation responsive to the estimated states is introduced. We also evaluate that our proposed CNP policy.

Multi-agent Based Hybrid Scheduling Strategy Agile Manufacturing System

Abstract: For the condition of fuzzy and dynamic of agile manufacturing, a multi-agent architecture of agile manufacturing system and a hybrid strategy for scheduling were proposed. Firstly, a distributed multi-agent based manufacturing structure was proposed, which has characteristics of self-determination grounded on multi-agent as well as harmony grounded on hierarchical structure or dynamic logical unit. Then, based on the fuzzy theory and method, a hybrid shop floor scheduling strategy was studied that combines fuzzy programming with fuzzy Contract Net Protocol. The hybrid strategy has both virtues of precision of static programming and flexibility of Contract Net Protocol. Finally, a numeric case was simulated to test the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed approach.