This thesis provides an implementation of consensus of multi-agent networked systems. Consensus problem is an important issue of distributed computing and has various algorithms and applications in the field of electronical and computer science. The consensus requests all nodes of a network reach an agreement over a certain measurement. An algorithm of convergent consensus problem is implemented through a small network of Bluetooth communication in the thesis. The connections of the Bluetooth devices are wireless, and the device nodes of the network are driven by C++ software and Winsock API. The simulation results show that the implementation completes all the requirements of the distributed consensus algorithm.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Scott A. DeLoach / There is a growing demand for more effective integration of humans and computing systems, specifically in multiagent and multirobot systems. There are two aspects to consider in human integration: (1) the ability to control an arbitrary number of robots (particularly heterogeneous robots) and (2) integrating humans as peers in computing systems instead of being just users or supervisors. With traditional supervisory control of multirobot systems, the number of robots that a human can manage effectively is between four and six [17]. A limitation of traditional supervisory control is that the human must interact individually with each robot, which limits the upper-bound on the number of robots that a human can control effectively. In this work, I define the concept of "organizational control" together with an autonomous mechanism that can perform task allocation and other low-level housekeeping duties, which significantly reduces the need for the human to interact with individual robots. Humans are very versatile and robust in the types of tasks they can accomplish. However, failures in computing systems are common and thus redundancies are included to mitigate the chance of failure. When all redundancies have failed, system failure will occur and the computing system will be unable to accomplish its tasks. One way to further reduce the chance of a system failure is to integrate humans as peer "agents" in the computing system. As part of the system, humans can be assigned tasks that would have been impossible to complete due to failures.

Os múltiplos trabalhos de sistemas multiagentes musicais realizados nos últimos anos demonstram o interesse crescente na pesquisa de sistemas de composição e de performance musical que utilizem a tecnologia de agentes computacionais, sendo que apresentam um interesse maior por aqueles sistemas que integram técnicas de composição algorítmica, componentes de vida artificial e interatividade. Observamos também que a maioria dos trabalhos existentes apresentam muitas limitações em termos de escopo e flexibilidade, normalmente apresentando codificação musical simbólica e a resolução de um único problema, sendo que a motivação é mais técnica do que musical. Nesse contexto, surgem arcabouços voltados à criação de sistemas multiagentes musicais, como o Ensemble e o Interactive Swarm Orchestra, oferecendo flexibilidade para a modelagem e implementação de sistemas desse tipo, diversificando tanto os tipos de aplicação, tendo um propósito composicional ou performático, como os tipos de codificação musical que podem ser utilizados. Partimos da aparição dessas ferramentas para estudar o agente musical a partir de uma perspectiva interna, focando nos seus raciocínios, que são processos que definem o comportamento do agente no ambiente virtual do sistema e que são fundamentais para determinar e melhorar o seu valor composicional. Os arcabouços estudados se diferenciam por permitir a utilização de áudio como possível formato de codificação musical, o aproveitamento da espacialização sonora e a exploração da interatividade nos aplicativos, seja esta apenas entre agentes computacionais ou entre agentes e usuários humanos. Pretendemos portanto, nessa pesquisa, abordar sistemas com essas características. Através de extensões nos arcabouços e estudos de caso com motivação estética pretendemos dar continuidade a esses projetos e ao mesmo tempo validar e divulgar a sua utilização entre os potenciais usuários das ferramentas, como compositores, músicos interessados em performance e outros entusiastas dos sistemas musicais interativos. / Multiple musical multiagent systems have been developed in the last years proving the increasing interest in composition and musical performance systems that exploit intelligent agents technology. Theres an special focus on systems that integrate algorithmic composition techniques, artificial life and interactivity. We can also observe that most of these existing projects show many flexibility and scope limitations, as they normally use symbolic musical notation and they solve a single issue or scenario, as well as they have a technical motivation rather than a musical one. In that context, some musical multiagent systems frameworks as Ensemble and Interactive Swarm Orchestra emerge, trying to help the modeling and development of this kind of musical systems, diversifying the applications\' types, as they can be composition problems or musical performances, and allowing the inclusion of other kind of musical content communication. Through these new tools we study the musical agent from an internal perspective, focusing on its reasoning components, processes that define the behavior of an agent on its system\'s virtual environment and that are essential to determine and improve its compositional value. The studied frameworks show unique features as they support audio as a possible musical notation format; they exploit sound spatialization and they work with interactivity in their applications, including agent-to-agent or human-to-agent interaction. We will explore this type of systems on this research. Through framework extensions and aesthetics-oriented study cases we pretend to continue these projects and validate them at same time. We also will contact potential users for these tools, as composers and musicians interested in performances or other musical interactive systems enthusiasts.

Nesta tese, propõe-se integrar, de modo sistemático, modelos organizacionais para prover interoperabilidade organizacional em sistemas multiagentes abertos. A interoperabilidade organizacional consiste em permitir que, em uma mesma organização de agentes, coexistam agentes desenvolvidos a partir de modelos organizacionais distintos. Para realizar tal intuito, aplica-se uma abordagem baseada em técnicas da Engenharia Dirigida por Modelos. A abordagem proposta divide-se em três etapas principais: (1) representar a estrutura conceitual de modelos organizacionais através de metamodelos; (2) identificar correspondências entre as estruturas conceituais dos modelos organizacionais utilizando como heurística a idéia de dimensões e padrões de modelagem organizacional ; e (3) combinar os metamodelos dos modelos organizacionais seguindo um algoritmo de junção de modelos baseado em grafos e articulações de grafos. Utilizando a abordagem proposta, quatro modelos organizacionais existentes são integrados: os modelos AGR, STEAM, MOISE+ e ISLANDER. Para ilustrar o uso da integração de metamodelos no problema de interoperabilidade organizacional, especifica-se e implementa-se uma infraestrutura de interoperabilidade organizacional chamada MAORI (Model-driven Architecture for Organizational Interoperability). A infraestrutura MAORI é estruturada em duas camadas: (1) a camada M2M, na qual a integraçãoo de modelos realizada é utilizada para traduzir especificações e estados organizacionais, e (2) a camada ORI, na qual infraestruturas organizacionais são interconectadas. Para testar e validar toda a proposta, a infraestrutura MAORI foi implementada para as infraestruturas organizacionais S-MOISE+ e MADKIT, e uma aplicaçào denominada WritePaper foi desenvolvida. A partir das implementações, alguns experimentos foram realizados. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que a integração de modelos organizacionais proposta, realizada na infraestrutura de interoperabilidade MAORI, efetivamente interconecta infraestruturas organizacionais distintas e permite que, em uma mesma organização de agentes, coexistam agentes desenvolvidos a partir de modelos organizacionais distintos. / This thesis proposes to integrate systematically organizational models for providing organizational interoperability in open multiagent systems. Organizational interoperability consists in enabling the participation, in the same agent organization, of agents developed with different organizational models. For this purpose, it is applied an approach based on techniques from Model-driven Engineering. The approach is divided in three main steps: (1) to represent the conceptual structure of organizational models by means of metamodels; (2) to identify correspondences among the conceptual structures of the organizational models using as heuristics the idea of organizational modeling dimensions and patterns; (3) to combine the metamodels of the organizational models by following a merge algorithm based on graphs and graph articulations. Using the proposed approach, four existing organizational models are integrated: AGR, STEAM, MOISE+ and ISLANDER. To illustrate the use of the integration, an organizational interoperability infrastructure called MAORI (Model-driven Architecture for Organizational Interoperability) is specified and implemented. The MAORI infrastructure is structured in two layers: (1) the M2M layer, in which the integration of models is used to translate the organizational specifications and states, and (2) the ORI layer, in which the organizational infrastructures are interconnected. To test and validate the approach, MAORI infrastructure was implemented for the organizational infrastructures S-MOISE+ and MADKIT, and an application called Write Paper was developed. Using the implementations, some experiments were done. The results show that the organizational model integration, implemented in the MAORI infrastructure, effectively interconnects distinct organizational infrastructures and enables the participation, in the same agent organization, of agents developed with different organizational models.

Sistemas multiagentes muitas vezes apresentam características que os aproximam de sociedades de agentes e, como as humanas, possuem normas e organizações com o objetivo de coordenar as interações entre os seus membros. Coalizão é um tipo de estrutura organizacional temporária, montada com objetivos específicos. A teoria dos jogos estuda formalmente o fenômeno coalizional, se detendo em demonstrações de propriedades e características dessa estrutura. A área de sistemas multiagentes, por outro lado, tem mostrado significativo interesse nas estruturas coalizionais como forma de organizar a cooperação entre os agentes, dedicando-se ao desenvolvimento de algoritmos para formação de coalizões. Esse trabalho apresenta um algoritmo de formação de coalizões para compartilhamento de recursos, denominado heurística ganha-ganha. Definimos um modelo que utiliza a abstração de recursos para representar tanto a posse de habilidades e objetos, quanto para representar os objetivos dos agentes. Um jogo de votação k-ponderado é utilizado para implementar o processo decisório de quais coalizões são válidas e o algoritmo testa iterativamente cada vizinhança de um agente na busca de associações vantajosas. Demonstramos que o algoritmo incrementa monotonicamente o bem-estar da sociedade e converge para uma estrutura coalizional. Também mostramos empiricamente que a heurística é eficiente para compartilhamento de recursos em situações de abundância de recursos, montando coalizões em poucas iterações e com uma quantidade grande de agentes. / Multiagent systems frequently show characteristics that come closer to agent societies and, like the humans ones, have norms and organizations in order to coordinate the interactions of its members. Coalition is a type of temporary organizational structure, assembled with specific goals. Game theory formally studies the coalitional phenomenon focusing in the demonstrations of properties and characteristics of this structure. The area of multiagent systems, on the other hand, has devoted significant interest in coalition structures as a way to organize cooperation between its members, and has been dedicated to the development of algorithms for coalition formation. This dissertation presents an algorithm to coalition formation named win-win heuristic. We define a model which uses the abstraction of resources to represent either, the possession of abilities and objects, or to represent the agents target. A k-weight voting game is used to implement the decision process of what coalitions are worth and an iteratively algorithm tests each agent neighborhood in the pursue of better associations. We demonstrate that the algorithm monotonically increases the society welfare and converges to a coalitional structure. We also show empirically that the heuristic is efficient for resource sharing in situations of availability of resources, building coalitions with few iterations and a large amount of agents.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology. / Department of Computer and Information Science

Esta tese propõe um modelo de adaptação organizacional em Sistemas Multiagentes (SMA) composto por um modelo de organização e um processo de reorganização. O modelo organizacional, chamado de MOISE+, considera três dimensões da organização de um SMA: a estrutura (grupos, papéis e ligações), o funcionamento (planos globais, metas e missões) e as obrigações e permissões dos agentes. A principal característica do modelo MOISE+ é facilitar a mudança organizacional em uma das dimensões sem comprometer as outras. É possível, por exemplo, alterar a estrutura da organização sem alterar o seu funcionamento e vice-versa. O processo de reorganização permite que os próprios agentes realizem a mudança através de quatro etapas: monitoração da organização corrente, projetos de planos de mudança, seleção dos planos e implementação do plano selecionado. A principal característica deste processo é a existência explícita da organização responsável pela reorganização (descrita na notação do modelo MOISE+) permitindo a abertura do processo. Estando a representação deste processo disponível aos agentes, estes podem participar da reorganização, bastando que compreendam a notação do modelo. Este processo foi implementado e avaliado em dois estudos de caso, empresas virtuais e futebol de robôs, nos quais as etapas de seleção e implementação foram enfatizadas, já que existem poucos trabalhos que abordam estas duas etapas do processo de reorganização. / This thesis proposes a reorganization model for Multiagent Systems (MAS). This reorganization model is composed by both an organizational model and a reorganization process. The organization model, called MOISE+, is based on three dimensions: the organizational structure (composed by roles, groups, links, etc.), the organizational functioning (composed by global plans, missions, goals, etc.), and the agents\' obligations and permissions. The MOISE+ model main feature is the independence among these dimensions. It is therefore possible to change the organizational structure without any change in the functioning. The reorganization process enables the agents themselves to perform the reorganization along four phases: monitoring (when to reorganize), design (ways of building a new organization), selection (how to choose a new organization), and implementation (how to change the current running organization). The reorganization process is explicitly described in MOISE+ notation and the agents have access to it. This property enables any agent to participate in the reorganization when he understands MOISE+ notation. The reorganization process is thus open since many agents can joint it. This process was implemented and evaluated in two domains: virtual enterprises and robot soccer. The experiments have focused mainly on the selection and implementation phases since the research on those phases is not very common in the literature.

Systems with time delays have a broad range of applications not only in control systems but also in many other disciplines such as mathematical biology, financial economics, etc. The time delays cause more complex behaviours of the systems. It requires more sophisticated analysis due to the infinite dimensional structure of the space spaces. In this thesis we investigate stability properties associated with output functions of delay systems. Our primary target is the equivalent Lyapunov characterization of input-tooutput stability (ios). A main approach used in this work is the Lyapuno Krasovskii functional method. The Lyapunov characterization of the so called output-Lagrange stability is technically the backbone of this work, as it induces a Lyapunov description for all the other output stability properties, in particular for ios. In the study, we consider two types of output functions. The first type is defined in between Banach spaces, whereas the second type is defined between Euclidean spaces. The Lyapunov characterization for the first type of output maps provides equivalence between the stability properties and the existence of the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals. On the other hand, as a special case of the first type, the second type output renders flexible Lyapunov descriptions that are more efficient in applications. In the special case when the output variables represent the complete collection of the state variables, our Lyapunov work lead to Lyapunov characterizations of iss, complementing the current iss theory with some novel results. We also aim at understanding how output stability are affected by the initial data and the external signals. Since the output variables are in general not a full collection of the state variables, the overshoots and decay properties may be affected in different ways by the initial data of either the state variables or just only the output variables. Accordingly, there are different ways of defining notions on output stability, making them mathematically precisely. After presenting the definitions, we explore the connections of these notions. Understanding the relation among the notions is not only mathematically necessary, it also provides guidelines in system control and design. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Este trabalho apresenta uma arquitetura para fornecer, de forma automática, o reforço de aprendizagem após a aplicação de uma avaliação objetiva dentro de um ambiente de Educação à Distância. Para o desenvolvimento da arquitetura foram usadas tecnologias das áreas de Ontologia e Agentes. A área de Ontologia contribuiu com a construção de materiais de aprendizagem modelados ontologicamente e a construção de ontologias de domínio das disciplinas de Estruturas de Dados I e Análise e Desenvolvimento de Algoritmos I, ministradas nos cursos de Bacharelado em Ciência da Computação e Bacharelado em Sistemas de Informação oferecidos pelo Departamento de Computação da Faculdade de Ciências da UNESP – campus de Bauru - SP. A área de Agentes traz, ao ambiente, agentes de busca capazes de fazer indicações de reforço do conteúdo. A arquitetura foi implementada usando o ambiente de Educação à Distância VirtualCurso, desenvolvido originalmente pelo Laboratório de Tecnologia de Informação Aplicada (LTIA) da UNESP – campus de Bauru - SP. A implementação recebeu o nome de VCurso+. Realizou-se alguns testes com o sistema para verificar se o reforço obteve o efeito esperado na aprendizagem do aluno. / This work presents an architecture to support automatically the apprentice’s reinforcing on environment of Distance Education. In order to develop this architecture technologies from the areas of Ontology & Agents have been used. The Ontology domain has contributed with the building of apprentice’s materials and the construction of domain ontologies for the disciplines of Data Structures I and Analysis & Development of Algorithms I, taught on bachelor's degree of Computer Science and bachelor's degree in Information Systems courses offered at the Computer Science Department of UNESP campus of Bauru SP. The Agents domain has inspered the creation of search agents capable of making indications of content reinforcing. The proposed architecture was implemented in the VirtualCurso enviroment, developped originally at Laboratory of Technology of Information Applied (LTIA) from UNESP campus of Bauru SP and it was called VCurso +. Some tests have been made with the system to verify whether the reinforcing learning proposed by architecture has had the expected effect on the apprentice’s learning.

Nous vivons aujourd'hui dans un monde de plus en plus complexe et interconnecté où de nombreuses entités, de plus en plus intelligentes, génèrent une multitude d'interactions qui peuvent contribuer à enrichir leurs capacités. Nous nous intéressons à la collaboration qui favorisera la réalisation de tâches complexes par ces machines d'aujourd'hui et de demain en stimulant ces interactions structurées et en intégrant des processus de décisions intelligents. Par ce biais, cela contribuera à améliorer leur fonctionnement et pourra participer à leur perfectionnement (meilleures connaissances de leur environnement, rapidité d'action et de décision, apport de nouvelles compétences). L'objectif principal de la thèse est donc de contribuer à la compréhension de ce qu'est la collaboration, de sa définition à sa mise en œuvre, en mettant en lumière ses concepts sous-jacents. Nous proposons une méthode d'analyse du besoin et des contraintes ainsi qu'un modèle d'architecture d'agent collaboratif (HACCA) permettant d'intégrer toutes les caractéristiques des processus collaboratifs que nous présentons. Nous présentons également une première implémentation dans la plateforme multi-agents GAMA.Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous nous intéressons à deux cas d'application d'entités mobiles : les drones et les véhicules connectés. Ainsi nous contribuons également plus largement aux besoins d'autonomie et de décision des drones, des véhicules connectés et autonomes du futur, dans un contexte temporel contraint où la qualité des interactions est primordiale pour optimiser le processus de réalisation des objectifs. / We live today in an increasingly complex and interconnected world where many entities, increasingly intelligent, generate a multitude of interactions that can contribute to enrich their capabilities.We are interested in collaboration that will enable complex tasks to be performed by these machines of today and tomorrow by stimulating these structured interactions and integrating intelligent decision-making processes. In this way, it will contribute to improve their functioning and will be able to participate in their improvement (better knowledge of their environment, speed of action and decision-making, provision of new skills).The main objective of the thesis is therefore to contribute to the understanding of what collaboration is, from its definition to its implementation, by highlighting its underlying concepts. We propose a method of analysis (needs and constraints) and a collaborative agent architecture model (HACCA) to integrate all the characteristics of the collaborative processes that we present. We are also showing a first implementation in the GAMA multi-agent platform.As part of this study, we are interested in two cases of application of mobile entities: drones and connected vehicles.Thus we also contribute more to the autonomy needs and decision-making process of drones, connected and autonomous vehicles of the future, in a constrained temporal context where the quality of interactions is essential to optimize the process of achieving objectives.