Trends in distributed artificial intelligence

摘要

Distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that deals with interactions of intelligent agents. Precisely, DAI attempts to construct intelligent agents that make decisions that allow them to achieve their goals in a world populated by other intelligent agents with their own goals. This paper discusses major concepts used in DAI today. To do this, a taxonomy of DAI is presented, based on the social abilities of an individual agent, the organization of agents, and the dynamics of this organization through time. Social abilities are characterized by the reasoning about other agents and the assessment of a distributed situation. Organization depends on the degree of cooperation and on the paradigm of communication. Finally, the dynamics of organization is characterized by the global coherence of the group and the coordination between agents. A reasonably representative review of recent work done in DAI field is also supplied in order to provide a better appreciation of this vibrant AI field. The paper concludes with important issues in which further research in DAI is needed.