What are MultiAgent Systems?

MultiAgent systems is a field of Computer Science focusing on building autonomous agents, that can communicate with other agents.

Why MultiAgent Systems?

Computing is becoming more ubiquitous, interconnected, intelligent, more and more tasks are delegated to it, and it is becoming more human-oriented. What does this mean? Computing itself is becoming faster and more efficient. The internet created a global network interconnected devices, and now we are seeing more and more tasks delegated to these systems. A good example is a self-driving car, almost unthinkable a decade ago.

As our requirements become more complex, we need a computing system that can manage all of this. This is the “vision” behind multiagent systems. A network of agents that can communicate effectively as humans do to get tasks done.

In the case of self-driving cars, we ideally want cars to be communicating with each other to be most efficient. Traffic is a huge problem in our societies where we waste to much time doing nothing and still causing lots of accidents. Traffic lights are a way for humans to communicate with each other, and they’re inefficient. Computers can communicate with each other at the speed of light so it’s a no-brainer.

How to realise MultiAgent Systems?

The problem is so simple it can be summarised in just two bullet points:

• How do we build agents that are capable of independent, autonomous action in order to successfully carry out the tasks that we delegate to them?
• How do we build agents that are capable of interacting (cooperating, coordinating, negotiating) with other agents in order to successfully carry out the tasks that we delegate to them, particularly when the other agents cannot be assumed to share the same interests/goals?

The Textbook on this topic is An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems by Micheal Wooldridge. I have made a mindmap of the topics covered in the book below.