CH558 Software Agent(Software Agent Technology and Multi-agent

Systems)

Spring Semester, 2005

Dept. of Computer Science

Yonsei University

Multi-agent Systems

have emerged as one of the most important areas of research and development in information technology in the 1990s.

are composed of multiple interacting software components known as agents, which are typically capable of cooperating to solve problems that are beyond the abilities of any individual member.

are important primarily because they have been found to have very wide applicability, in areas as diverse as industrial process control and electronic commerce.

Course Objectives

to introduce the student to the concept of an agent and multi-agent system, and the main applications for which they are appropriate;

to introduce the main issues surrounding the design of intelligent agents;

to introduce the main issues surrounding the design of a multi-agent society;

to introduce a contemporary platform for implementing agents and multi-agent systems.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completing this course, a student will:

– understand the notion of an agent, how agents are distinct from other software paradigms (e.g., objects), and understand the characteristics of applications that lend themselves to an agent-oriented solution;

– understand the key issues associated with constructing agents capable of intelligent autonomous action, and the main approaches taken to developing such agents;

– understand the key issues in designing societies of agents that can effectively cooperate in order to solve problems, including an understanding of the key types of multi-agent interactions possible in such systems;

– understand the main application areas of agent-based solutions, and be able to develop a meaningful agent-based system using a contemporary agent development platform.

Contact

Instructor– Prof. Sung-Bae Cho (Eng. C515; 2123-2720; sbcho@cs.yonsei.ac.kr)

Web-page : http://sclab.yonsei.ac.kr/Courses/05Agent

Class hours– Mon 10:00 ~ 10:50, Wed 10:00~11:50 (Eng. C520)

Office hour– Thu 1:00 ~ 3:00 pm

TA– Mr. Jin-Hyuk Hong (hjinh@sclab.yonsei.ac.kr)

Textbook– [Woo] M. Wooldridge, An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems. John

Wiley & Sons, 2002. ISBN 0 47149691X.– [SAT] http://www.cs.uta.fi/sat/materials

References – Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Ed), Software Agents, MIT Press, 1997– Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh, Readings in Agents, Morgan

Kaufmann, 1998– Jacques Ferber, Multi-Agent Systems, Addison-Wesley, 1999– Akira Namatame (Ed), Agent-based Approaches in Economic and S

ocial Complex Systems, 2002– Related Conference Proceedings (IJCAI, AAAI, PRICAI, IAT, etc)– UMBC site : http://agents.umbc.edu/– MIT site : http://ttt.media.mit.edu/research/research.html

Course Materials

Course Schedule1. 3/2 : Course Introduction2. 3/7, 9 : Visions of Agents (SAT, Ch1), Intro. Multiagent Systems (Woo, Ch1)3. 3/14, 16 : Classes of Agents (SAT, Ch2), Intelligent Agents (Woo, Ch2)4. 3/21, 23 : Technical Issues (SAT, Ch3), Deductive Reasoning Agents (Woo, Ch

3)5. 3/28, 30 : Agent Architecture (SAT, Ch4), Practical Reasoning (Woo, Ch4)6. 4/4, 6 : No Lecture (Project Proposal)7. 4/11, 13 : User Interface Agents (SAT, Ch5), Reactive & Hybrid (Woo, Ch5)8. 4/18 : 중간시험9. 4/25, 27 : FIPA (SAT, Ch6), Multiagent Interactions (Woo, Ch6)10. 5/2, 4 : Agent Communications (SAT, Ch7), Reaching Agreements (Woo, Ch7)11. 5/9, 11 : Ontologies (SAT, Ch8), Agent Communication (Woo, Ch8)12. 5/16, 18 : BDI (SAT, Ch9), Working Together (Woo, Ch9)13. 5/23, 25 : Profiles (SAT, Ch10), Methodologies (Woo, Ch10)14. 5/30, 6/1 : Agents in Mobile Devices (SAT, Ch11), Applications (Woo, Ch11)15. 6/8 : Project Presentation16. 6/13 : 기말시험

Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria

– Term Project (written report and an oral presentation) : 40%

– Mid and Final Exams : 30%

– Homeworks and Class Participation : 30%

Term Project (Oral presentation is required) :

– Theoretical Issue (Analysis, Experiment, Simulation) : Originality

– Interesting Programming (Game, Demo, etc) : Performance

– Survey : Completeness

List of Possible Projects

Conversational agents Artificial-life agents Intelligent agents for mobile devices Inference and prediction for agents Service discovery agents Game agents Semantic modeling for agents Distributed information agents (Amalthae, Anarchid) Personalized information agents Avatar …

Questions & Answers