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Evaluating Task-Allocation Strategies for Emergency Repair in MAS

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Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XXVIII

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((TCCI,volume 10780))

Abstract

Nowadays, many systems are connected through networks. System of systems (SOSs) of this type can be regarded as multi-agent systems (MASs). These SoSs or MASs are robust against system failures because a failure of a system does not immediately mean the total failure of the whole system. In this paper, we consider a repairing problem of MASs where causes of future agent failures have to be removed within a limited time, and some agents become out of order if not repaired. In our simulation scenarios, many causes of future agent failures in MASs are found simultaneously and consecutively owing to large-scale disasters. In order to effectively repair them and reduce the number of agent failures, task-allocation strategies for emergency repair are extremely important. This paper compares five task-allocation algorithms in emergency situations: independent unit MAS algorithm, centralized algorithm, distributed algorithm, centralized algorithm with replanning, and distributed algorithm with replanning.

This paper is modified and extended from our earlier conference paper [12] that was selected from ICAART2016 and ICAART2017 and recommended for submission to this journal. Compared with our previous work [12], we add two new sections: Sects. 2 and 7. We cite more related work in Sect. 2. We show new simulation results in Sect. 7 and modified the other sections accordingly. We also add Tables 5 and 6, Figs. 8, 9, 10 and 11. We reuse the other tables and figures although some of them are modified.

H. Hayashi—Presently with School of Industrial Technology, Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, 1-10-40 Higashi-Ooi, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, 140-0011, Japan. (Since 1 October 2017).

This research was conducted at Toshiba Corporation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Even if multiple manager agents report the same cause of a future agent failure, the top manager agent starts the auction only once.

  2. 2.

    Even if a sensing agent reports a cause of a future agent failure to its manager agent, the manager agent will not start the auction if another manager agent has already started the auction for the same cause of a future agent failure. In this paper, for simplicity, we assume that there is no delay for agent communication. However, when there is such communication delay, each manager agent needs to stop the auction it has already started when they know that another manager agent has started the auction earlier for the same cause of a future agent failure. We are currently tackling this problem and recently reported some results in [13].

  3. 3.

    Compared with [3], the number (153) of unit MASs in Simulation 2 is much larger. In fact, the maximum number of frigates (= unit MASs) in [3] is only 10.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. System Engineering Laboratory, Corporate Research and Development Center, Toshiba Corporation, 1 Komukai-Toshiba-cho, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki, 212-8582, Japan

    Hisashi Hayashi

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  1. Hisashi Hayashi
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Correspondence to Hisashi Hayashi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Wrocław University of Technology, Wrocław, Poland

    Ngoc Thanh Nguyen

  2. Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia

    Ryszard Kowalczyk

  3. Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Jaap van den Herik

  4. Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Ana Paula Rocha

  5. INSTICC, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Setubal, Portugal

    Joaquim Filipe

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Hayashi, H. (2018). Evaluating Task-Allocation Strategies for Emergency Repair in MAS. In: Nguyen, N., Kowalczyk, R., van den Herik, J., Rocha, A., Filipe, J. (eds) Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XXVIII. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10780. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78301-7_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78301-7_11

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