A Voltage Control Method for a Distributed Line Feeder by means of Multiagent Approach

This paper proposes a method for the coordinated control of power factor by means of a multiagent approach. The proposed multiagent system consists of two types of agent: single feeder agent (F_AG) and bus agent (B_AG). In the proposed system, an F_AG plays as an important role, which decides the power factors of all distributed generators by executing the load flow calculations repeatedly. The voltage control strategies are implemented as the class definition of Java into the system. In order to verify the performance of the proposed method, it has been applied to a typical distribution model system. The simulation results show that the system is able to control very violent fluctuation of the demands and the photovoltaic (PV) generations.     

Distributed learning consensus control based on neural networks for heterogeneous nonlinear multiagent systems

This paper considers a novel distributed iterative learning consensus control algorithm based on neural networks for the control of heterogeneous nonlinear multiagent systems. The system's unknown nonlinear function is approximated by suitable neural networks; the approximation error is countered by a robust term in the control. Two types of control algorithms, both of which utilize distributed learning laws, are provided to achieve consensus. In the provided control algorithms, the desired reference is considered to be an unknown factor and then estimated using the associated learning laws. The consensus convergence is proven by the composite energy function method. A numerical simulation is ultimately presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed control schemes.     

Environment as a first class abstraction in multiagent systems

The current practice in multiagent systems typically associates the environment with resources that are external to agents and their communication infrastructure. Advanced uses of the environment include infrastructures for indirect coordination, such as digital pheromones, or support for governed interaction in electronic institutions. Yet, in general, the notion of environment is not well defined. Functionalities of the environment are often dealt with implicitly or in an ad hoc manner. This is not only poor engineering practice, it also hinders engineers to exploit the full potential of the environment in multiagent systems. In this paper, we put forward the environment as an explicit part of multiagent systems.We give a definition stating that the environment in a multiagent system is a first-class abstraction with dual roles: (1) the environment provides the surrounding conditions for agents to exist, which implies that the environment is an essential part of every multiagent system, and (2) the environment provides an exploitable design abstraction for building multiagent system applications. We discuss the responsibilities of such an environment in multiagent systems and we present a reference model for the environment that can serve as a basis for environment engineering. To illustrate the power of the environment as a design abstraction, we show how the environment is successfully exploited in a real world application. Considering the environment as a first-class abstraction in multiagent systems opens up new horizons for research and development in multiagent systems.     

Semiglobal synchronization of multiple generic linear agents with input saturation

This paper investigates the semiglobal synchronization problem for a group of agents with input saturation under directed interaction topology, where each agent is modeled as a generic linear system rather than the single‐integrator or double‐integrator dynamics. The main result is the construction of a feedback coupling gain that achieves semiglobal synchronization if all the agents have identically saturated linear dynamics, which can be of any order. It is shown that the coupling gain obtained via parametric Lyapunov equations can semiglobally synchronize any directed network provided that the interaction topology has a directed spanning tree. Furthermore, due to the use of parametric Lyapunov equations, a convergence rate is analytically obtained. Finally, a simulation example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of our theoretical findings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一个基于XCS的同质团队学习模型

同质团队学习是实现多Agent协作的一种方法。但是,传统方法仅在系统运行的前后对目标Agent进行修改,系统运行过程没有直接对Agent的改进做出贡献。本文利用合作策略,在学习分类器系统XCS的基础上提出了一种同质团队学习模型,弥补了传统方法的上述不足。文中还在模型的基础上实验分析了相关因素,如规则积累、通信以及发现新规则等对多Agent协作效率的影响。     

Graphical models for interactive POMDPs: representations and solutions

We develop new graphical representations for the problem of sequential decision making in partially observable multiagent environments, as formalized by interactive partially observable Markov decision processes (I-POMDPs). The graphical models called interactive influence diagrams (I-IDs) and their dynamic counterparts, interactive dynamic influence diagrams (I-DIDs), seek to explicitly model the structure that is often present in real-world problems by decomposing the situation into chance and decision variables, and the dependencies between the variables. I-DIDs generalize DIDs, which may be viewed as graphical representations of POMDPs, to multiagent settings in the same way that I-POMDPs generalize POMDPs. I-DIDs may be used to compute the policy of an agent given its belief as the agent acts and observes in a setting that is populated by other interacting agents. Using several examples, we show how I-IDs and I-DIDs may be applied and demonstrate their usefulness. We also show how the models may be solved using the standard algorithms that are applicable to DIDs. Solving I-DIDs exactly involves knowing the solutions of possible models of the other agents. The space of models grows exponentially with the number of time steps. We present a method of solving I-DIDs approximately by limiting the number of other agents’ candidate models at each time step to a constant. We do this by clustering models that are likely to be behaviorally equivalent and selecting a representative set from the clusters. We discuss the error bound of the approximation technique and demonstrate its empirical performance.     

Fully distributed consensus for fuzzy multiagent systems with jointly connected topology

This paper investigates the problem of fully distributed consensus for polynomial fuzzy multiagent systems (MASs) under jointly connected topologies. First, a polynomial fuzzy modeling method is presented to characterize the error dynamics that is constructed by one leader and multiple followers. Then, using the relative state information and the agents' dynamics, a distributed adaptive protocol is designed to guarantee that MASs under jointly connected topologies can achieve consensus in a fully distributed fashion. Utilizing the Lyapunov technique, a relaxed sufficient criterion is proposed to ensure consensus for fuzzy MASs under jointly connected topologies. Moreover, the adaptive coupling weights between neighboring agents can converge to certain values. The derived condition is transformed into a sum-of-squares form, which can be solved numerically. We provide an example to illustrate the proposed distributed adaptive consensus technique's validity.     

Fully distributed optimization of second-order systems with disturbances based on event-triggered control

This paper studies the distributed optimization problem of second-order multiagent systems containing external disturbances. To reject the external disturbances and lead agents' states to converge to the optimal consensus point, an adaptive event-triggered controller is proposed based on the internal model principle. With the adaptive mechanism, both the controller and the event-triggering condition do not contain the parameters related to global information, such as the maximum Lipschitz constant and the minimum strongly convex constant of local cost functions, and hence the event-triggered controller is fully distributed. By utilizing the event-triggered scheme, the consumption of communication among neighbors and the computing resources are saved. Furthermore, with the Lyapunov analysis framework, the optimal consensus can be proved to achieve and Zeno behavior is excluded from the event-triggering condition. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed protocol is verified by numerical simulations.     

Neural network-based event-triggered cluster quasi-consensus for unknown multiagent systems with directed topology

This paper studies cluster quasi-consensus problem for a class of unknown nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with directed communication topology. First, a distributed continuous neural network (NN)-based adaptive protocol is presented for solving this problem by introducing reference model to each agent. Then, taking limited communication resource and energy consumption into account, a distributed event-triggered cluster quasi-consensus protocol is proposed. Different from the existing results, two event-triggered mechanisms are constructed in the proposed event-triggered protocol to reduce communication load and control update frequency as possible. The sufficient conditions that guarantee cluster quasi-consensus under the both proposed protocols are obtained, respectively. Zeno behavior is proved to be excluded. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed protocols.     

Reasoning about action and change

Reasoning about change is a central issue in research on human and robot planning. We study an approach to reasoning about action and change in a dynamic logic setting and provide a solution to problems which are related to the Frame problem. Unlike most work on the frame problem the logic described in this paper is monotonic. It (implicitly) allows for the occurrence of actions of multiple agents by introducing non-stationary notions of waiting and test. The need to state a large number of frame axioms is alleviated by introducing a concept of chronological preservation to dynamic logic. As a side effect, this concept permits the encoding of temporal properties in a natural way. We compare the relative merits of our approach and non-monotonic approaches as regards different aspects of the frame problem. Technically, we show that the resulting extended systems of propositional dynamic logic preserve (weak) completeness, finite model property and decidability.