Title: Local agent-based self-stabilisation in global resource utilisation

Authors: Evangelos Pournaras, Martijn Warnier, Frances M.T. Brazier

Addresses: Systems Engineering Section, Department of Multi-actor Systems, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, NL-2600GA, Delft, The Netherlands. ' Systems Engineering Section, Department of Multi-actor Systems, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, NL-2600GA, Delft, The Netherlands. ' Systems Engineering Section, Department of Multi-actor Systems, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, NL-2600GA, Delft, The Netherlands

Abstract: Distributed management of complex large-scale infrastructures, such as power distribution systems, is challenging. Sustainability of these systems can be achieved by enabling stabilisation in global resource utilisation. This paper proposes the Energy Plan Overlay Self-stabilisation system (EPOS), for this purpose. EPOS is an agent-based approach that performs self-stabilisation over a tree overlay, as an instance of a hierarchical virtual organisation. The global goal of stabilisation emerges through local knowledge, local decisions and local interactions among software agents organised in a tree. Two fitness functions are proposed to stabilise global resource utilisation. The first proactively keeps deviations minimised and the second reactively reverses deviations. Extensive experimentation reveals that EPOS outperforms a system that utilises resources in a greedy manner. Finally, this paper also investigates and evaluates factors that influence the effectiveness of EPOS.

Keywords: software agents; adaptation; tree overlay; resource utilisation; stabilisation; energy management; thermostatic devices; agent-based systems; multi-agent systems; MAS; distributed management; large-scale infrastructures; power distribution.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAC.2010.037512

International Journal of Autonomic Computing, 2010 Vol.1 No.4, pp.350 - 373

Published online: 15 Dec 2010 *

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