Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is working on developing new kinds of robotic structures capable of: goal-oriented motion, changing its form to optimize its function, adapting to new environmental demands, and/or repairing itself. A series of increasingly complex roving shapes leading up to the tetrahedron were considered. This paper addresses this innovative use of multi agent system technology that is being used to achieve the desired autonomous behaviors.

Congestion control in MAS is addressed through a network of agents communicating with each other, for issuing and responding to assistance requests. The network state is analyzed as a particular qualitative game, called Game of Deterrence. A congestion avoidance algorithm is proposed, on the basis of the game solutions. The relation between the type of game reflecting the structure of the agent network, and the occurrence of congestion is then analyzed, highlighting the impact of the network size, and leading to the alternative of either implementing the algorithm, or breaking down the global network in regional networks inside which the congestion occurrence probability is low. The method is then extended to the dynamic case through an example showing existence of cycles.

Autonomous and Autonomic Systems (AAS) are essentially concerned with creating self-directed and self-managing systems based on biologically-inspired metaphors such as the mammalian autonomic nervous system. Future Ubiquitous and Pervasive computing environments will depend on such a self-managing infrastructure. Agent technologies have been identified as a key enabler for engineering autonomy and autonomicity in systems, both in terms of retrofitting self-management into legacy systems and designing and developing totally new systems. Handing over responsibility to the systems themselves raises many concerns for humans. This paper reports on the continued investigation into a strand of research on how to engineer self-protection mechanisms into systems to assist in providing confidence regarding the appropriateness of systems utilizing principles of autonomy and autonomicity. This includes utilizing the apoptosis metaphor to potentially provide a self-destruct signal between autonomic agents as and when needed, and an ALice signal to facilitate self-identification and self-certification between anonymous autonomous agents and systems.

Technological developments such as biometrics are providing new potential for next generation security systems. At the same time these developments can make the system more complex to manage. Some classes of systems have a fundamental requirement to survive be that to ensure an organization does not loose tens of millions of dollars due to downtime or to ensure there is not a security breach. Autonomic self-managing systems are motivated to hide the ever increasing complexity in today’s systems but through their selfware approach they also offer the potential to create survivable systems. This paper details one such approach, to create a survivable security system for correction centers.