Model and analysis of local decision based on cooperative self-organization for problem solving

Issue title: Special Issue on Recent Progress in Distributed Intelligence

Guest editors: Bhanu Prasad

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Picard, Gauthier^{; *} | Glize, Pierre

Affiliations: IRIT, Université Paul Sabatier, 118, route de Narbonne, F-31062 Toulouse Cedex, France | Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Florida A & M University, Tallahassee, FL 32307, USA

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 5 61 55 61 82; Fax: +33 5 61 55 62 58; E-mail: picard@irit.fr

Abstract: This paper presents an approach based on cooperative self-organization for artificial systems, in order to tackle openness and dynamics. In this work, cooperation is used as a local criterion enabling parts of the system – the cooperative agents – to reorganize as to autonomously modify their interactions and then the global function. The difficulty in defining cooperation and the means to reestablish a cooperative state within a non cooperative system are underlined and analyzed. Two cooperative agents' behaviors are expounded, at the boundary between altruism and selfishness. This approach is also illustrated by modeling, from a local viewpoint, a classical constraint satisfaction or optimization problems.

Keywords: Multi-Agent Systems, self-organization, cooperation, emergence, local decision

DOI: 10.3233/MGS-2006-2304

Journal: Multiagent and Grid Systems, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 253-265, 2006