BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

MULTI-AGENTS SYSTEM 1)2)

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A network composed of numerous interconnected elements or individuals.

This very general model is derived from the concept of distributed artificial intelligence.

As stated by J. ERCEAU and J. FERBER, it offers a frame for the study of: "… the behavior of a set of more or less expert entities, more or less organized along social type laws. These entities or agents benefit from a certain degree of autonomy, and are immersed in some environment in which and with which they interact. They are structured around three functions: to perceive, decide and/or act. They can be physical entities (sensors, processors, vehicles,…) or abstract ones (tasks to be performed, movements,…). Through reciprocal information transmission, they become able to act on their environment and upon themselves, i.e. to modify their own behavior. To this end, they are endowed with a partial representation of this environment and with perception and communication means".

"As their behavior is based on an a priori or on acquired knowledge, agents include two main features. The first one is a social tendency, oriented towards the collectivity: this is the conversational and relational domain, and the corresponding mechanisms and associated knowledge bases are related to the group's activity. The other is the individual tendency in this case, the register is about knowledge and behavior, with mechanisms and knowledge bases including rules for the internal workings of the agent" (1991, p.752).

What the authors describe are networks of artificial agents (robots of limited individual abilities). But the model also strikingly suggests analogies with human and, probably, insects societies.

Networks of this type are most generally decentralized, since their organization, while in need and in search of coherence, is a result of more or less free, local and specific interrelations. As an example, R. BROOKS proposes micro- robots "societies" that would be used for planetary exploration, in which case the sidereal distances make efficient communications with any earth based users quite difficult, due to time lags (1989).

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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