Agent cloning: an approach to agent mobility and resource allocation

Author

Shehory, Onn ; Sycara, Katia ; Chalasani, Prasad ; Jha, Somesh

Author_Institution

Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volume

36

Issue

7

fYear

1998

fDate

7/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Lastpage

67

Abstract

Multi-agent systems are subject to performance bottlenecks in cases where agents cannot perform tasks by themselves due to insufficient resources. Solutions to such problems include passing tasks to others or agent migration to remote hosts. We propose agent cloning as a more comprehensive approach to the problem of local agent overloads. Agent cloning subsumes task transfer and agent mobility. According to our paradigm, agents may clone, pass tasks to others, die, or merge. We discuss the requirements of implementing a cloning mechanism and its benefits in a multi-agent system, and support our claims with simulation results

Keywords

Internet; open systems; resource allocation; software agents; telecommunication computing; Internet; World Wide Web; agent cloning; agent migration; agent mobility; local agent overloads; multi-agent systems; open systems; remote hosts; resource allocation; simulation results; task transfer; Cloning; Computational intelligence; Computational modeling; Concrete; Intelligent agent; Internet; Multiagent systems; Resource management;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0163-6804

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/35.689632

Filename

689632