Title: The property of agent's sacrifice: definition, measure, effect and applications

Authors: Viacheslav Abrosimov

Addresses: Aerospace Department, Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University), MAI, Volokolamskoye Shosse, 4, Moscow, 125993, А-80, GSP-3, Russia

Abstract: This paper studies situation when an agent fulfilling a collective task in a multi-agent system performs actions inconsistent with its further functioning. Such a state reflects the agent's capability for self-sacrifice. The belief-desire-intention architecture of multi-agent systems is extended by adding the notion of the agent's 'commitment' to a group and the emotion of the agent's 'sacrifice'. A measure of sacrifice is defined as the sum of fuzzy numbers characterising the agent's commitment to the group, the degree of the agent's belief in the reasonability of self-sacrifice and its intention to resolve the collective task. Certain conditions under which an agent becomes a sacrifice for collective task fulfilment and a logical sacrifice selection procedure based on negotiations among agents are established. Finally, the behavioural models of agents with different self-sacrifice measures ('altruists', 'pragmatists' and 'egoists') are constructed using AnyLogic simulation tools.

Keywords: multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; emotion; altruism; pragmatism; egoism; self-sacrifice; monitoring; agent negotiation; belief desire intention; BDI architecture; agent commitment; collective tasks; behavioural modelling; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRIS.2016.080069

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, 2016 Vol.8 No.1/2, pp.76 - 83

Received: 15 Dec 2015
Accepted: 11 May 2016
Published online: 31 Oct 2016 *

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