Re: multi-agent concept in SWARM

[glen e. p. ropella]

At 04:16 AM 7/13/99 -0700, you wrote:
>However, when I am about to decompose my target system into agents,
>what kind of agent model should I use ? what kind of behavioral
>characteristics
>should the agent have? what is the structural hierarchy SWARM uses?
>
>I understand SWARM is not for just one multi-agent system model but
>I am still hoping it uses some kind of common concepts.

Hello Juhwan,

Swarm uses a kind of generic hierarchical structure.  There is no
single way of designing agents in Swarm.  The best way to start 
thinking about your project (regardless of whether or not you 
eventually use Swarm) is to sit down and write out what it is you're
actually trying to model.  If it turns out that you need a certain kind
of agent structure (including agents made up of agents), then that
defines the structure you'll need to find a tool to implement.

Don't ever let the tool dictate the model.

Having said that, whatever you come up with in your initial 
"modeling process" (which should utilize only pen and paper),
Swarm will probably accomodate it.  But, then you need to decide
if Swarm is ideal for it.  If you come up with an agent structure that
is very simple *and* all your agents are always embedded in a space,
then you might want to use something simpler than Swarm like
StarLogo.

Now, once you decide you actually want to use Swarm, then the
best way to get familiar with the *conventions* most Swarm 
programmers use is to read the source code for some of the 
applications in the swarmapps.tar.gz and on the user community
web pages.  And the next step is to design a very simple agent
model that is *not* similar to the one you really want to implement
(i.e. some silly toy model you come up with) and jump right in 
and write a Swarm implementation of that toy model.  This will
give you a good feel for how to implement things in Swarm.

Then (and only then) are you ready to implement your real model.

glen

--
glen e. p. ropella =><= Feeding the hamster wheel.  Hail Eris!
Home: http://www.trail.com/~gepr/home.html      (505) 424-0448
Work: http://www.swarm.com                      (505) 995-0818


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