Sensible agents

Abstract

The practical deployment of distributed agent-based systems mandates that each agent behave sensibly. The paper focuses on the development of flexible, responsive, adaptive systems based on sensible agents. Sensible agents perceive, process, and respond based on an understanding of both local and system goals. Each agent is capable of (1) deliberative or reactive planning and execution of one or more domain-specific service/task, (2) maintaining and interpreting knowledge about states, events, and goals related to itself, other agents, and the environment, and (3) adapting its behavior according to its understanding of its own local goals and overall system goals. The paper addresses the above issues in the context of applied semiotics, a field that analyzes and develops the formal tools of knowledge acquisition, representation, organization, generation, enhancement, communication, and utilization. A sensible agent architecture has been developed where each agent is composed of five modules: a self-agent modeler, an external agent modeler, an action planner, an autonomy reasoner, and a conflict resolution advisor.