Modeling and controlling systems of systems using agent-based simulations
Agent-Based Modeling of Systems of Systems
Multiagent Systems
Summary
Large systems often consist of many smaller, interacting parts that change over time. The authors introduce a way to model these complex systems using agents, which are small independent units that can act and interact. They use special frameworks to represent the roles, functions, and different levels within the system. This approach helps manage changes such as shifting goals or resource availability. They demonstrate their method with an example about self-driving vehicles in a port.
What this means in practice
- •For transportation system designers: Develop simulations for coordinating autonomous vehicles in complex transport environments like ports and logistics hubs.
- •For smart city planners: Model and predict how different urban subsystems interact and reorganize when goals or capacities change in dynamic settings.
Tested on simulated data.
Authors
Jean-Baptiste Soyez, Gildas Morvan, Rochdi Merzouki, Daniel Dupont
Abstract
This paper deals with the generic modeling of systems of systems (SoSs) using agent-based modeling. SoSs are large-scale systems, including numerous-possibly heterogeneous-interacting component systems evolving in a dynamic environment. The aim of this paper is to provide generic formalism allowing to represent and control the whole complexity of a SoS using agent-based simulations. In particular, organizational aspects of SoSs are managed with the Agent-Group-Role model. Functional aspects, guiding SoSs to accomplish their global goals, are handled via a functional specification. Multilevel aspects are modeled with the Influence Reaction Model for Multilevel Simulation (IRM4MLS) agent-based meta-model. Models generated using this formalism encompass static and dynamic aspects of SoSs. They consider reorganization of SoSs caused by changes of goals or subsystem capacity. All these elements are illustrated in this paper using a SoS case study of Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles initiated by the Intelligent Transportation for Dynamic Environment (InTraDE) European project to automate the port container logistic.