| Abstract | This paper describes an architecture for controlling and coordinating autonomous agents, building on previous work addressing reactive and deliberative control methods. The proposed multi-layered hybrid architecture allows a rationally bounded, goal-directed agent to reason predicatively about potential conflicts by constructing knowledge level models which explain other agents' observed behaviours and hypothesize their beliefs, desires, and intentions; at the same time it enables the agent to operate autonomously, to react promptly to changes in its real-time environment, and to coordinate its actions effectively with other agents. A principal aim of this research is to understand the role different functional capabilities play in constraining an agent's behaviour under varying environmental conditions. To this end, an experimental test bed has been constructed comprising a simulated multi-agent world in which a variety of agent configurations and behaviours have been investigated. A number of experimental findings are reported. |
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