Using Agents to Improve International Maritime Transport Security

Abstract

Agent-based techniques have the potential to improve the security of international maritime transport threatened by a steep rise of maritime piracy. We have demonstrated that a randomized route-selection strategy resulting from a normal two-player game formulation of the transit problem can decrease the number of attacks and the payoff accumulated by pirates. Coordinating the movement of patrol and transit vessels without a central authority requires techniques for semi-cooperative planning and coalition formation. With regard to existing applications of agent-based techniques, the maritime domain seems currently under-represented compared to other traffic and transportation domains. This work is a first step in addressing the situation and bringing this important domain into the focus of researchers in the multiagent systems field.