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Keeping a Clear Separation between Goals and Plans

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Engineering Multi-Agent Systems (EMAS 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8758))

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Abstract

Many approaches to BDI agent modeling permit the agent developers to interweave the levels of plans and goals. This is possible through the adoption of new goals inside plans. These goals will have plans of their own, and the definition can extend on many levels. From a software development point of view, the resulting complexity can render the agents’ behavior difficult to trace, due to the combination of elements from different abstraction levels, i.e., actions and goal adoptions. This has a negative effect on the development process when designing and debugging agents. In this paper we propose a change of approach that aims to provide a more comprehensible agent model with benefits for the ease of engineering and the fault tolerance of agent systems. This is achieved by imposing a clear separation between the reasoning and the acting levels of the agent. The use of goal adoptions and actions on the environment inside the same plan is therefore forbidden. The approach is illustrated using two theoretical scenarios as well as an agent-based maritime patrol application. We argue that by constraining the agent model we gain in clarity and traceability therefore benefiting the development process and encouraging the adoption of agent-based techniques in industrial contexts.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. LIP6, Paris, France

    Costin Caval, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni & Patrick Taillibert

  2. Thales Airborne Systems, Elancourt, France

    Costin Caval

Authors
  1. Costin Caval
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  2. Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni
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  3. Patrick Taillibert
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, De Uithof, 3584 CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Fabiano Dalpiaz

  2. Department of Informatics, Clausthal University of Technology, Julius-Albert-Str. 4, 38678,, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    JĂĽrgen Dix

  3. Department of Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands

    M. Birna van Riemsdijk

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Caval, C., El Fallah Seghrouchni, A., Taillibert, P. (2014). Keeping a Clear Separation between Goals and Plans. In: Dalpiaz, F., Dix, J., van Riemsdijk, M.B. (eds) Engineering Multi-Agent Systems. EMAS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8758. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14484-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14484-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14483-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14484-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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