Module Code
TECH9250

Module Type
Option

ECTS Points
5

Duration
1 Semester

Contact Hours

3 hours per week

Pre-requisites Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

Enterprise Systems and Architecture

Agency, as employed in artificial intelligence and distributed systems, is a software model loosely based on the natural organisation of autonomous and interacting real-world entities. The key characteristics of an agent, whether natural or artificial, are autonomous, adaptive, goal-directed, and communicative.

This module provides the student with an in-depth knowledge of software agents. Background information from sociology, biology and psychology motivates the study of software agents – and is used as a foundation for the subject matter.

Beyond the introductory and motivating material the module divides into the following three sections:

1. Agent architectures: The student will be study the various different approaches to creating artificial, intelligent agents. Such approaches include evolutionary, learning and rule based systems.

2. Multi-agent systems: Natural agents are inherently social, and satisfy collective goals by interacting, communicating, co-operating and exploiting each other. The study of the rules and means of communication is the key area of multi-agent systems. The student will design and implement systems of simple interacting agents after studying game theory and cellular automata scenarios – in addition to modern online agent societies.

3. Agent oriented software engineering is the application of the large body of research on agent based systems to real world software development. The various methodologies and approaches employed in this area comprise the final part of the module.

The module is strongly practically oriented – requiring the student to develop working systems. There is also, however, a strong theoretical component to the module.

Gerhard Weiss, 2000, Multiagent Systems: A Modern Approach to Distributed Artificial Intelligence, The MIT Press, 0262731312  

Lin Padgham, Michael Winikoff, 2004, Developing Intelligent Agent Systems : A Practical Guide (Wiley Series in Agent Technology), John Wiley & Sons, 0470861207

Jacques Ferber, 1999, Multi-Agent Systems: An Introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Addison-Wesley Pub Co, 0201360489

Joseph P. Bigus, Jennifer Bigus, Joe Bigus, Jennifer Bigus, 2001, Constructing Intelligent Agents Using Java: Professional Developer's Guide, 2nd Edition, Wiley, 047139601X

Michael Wooldridge, 2002, An Introduction to Multi-agent Systems, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 047149691X

Journals

Conferences