TargetShare Plan and Accomplishments
Current Plan
- Fall 2000- Refine architecture to the point where it
can pass the challenge problem. Determine what are the strong
and weak points of our approach. Write a paper detailing our
approach to dynamic resource allocation as exemplified by the
challenge problem.
- Summer 2000- Eliminate PostOffice code and re-engineer
our agents to use the "node" communications module provided with
Radsim. Re-design agents to use the new communications system.
Rip out our equations for determining a target's location based
on observations and instead use the tracker module. By the end
of the summer we should have a "tracer bullet" system that
displays some of the desired functionality, i.e., it can track
the target with some accuracy.
- Winter 2000 - Begin transition from our Ants simulator
to the Radsim simulator provided by Darpa. Rewrite agent
code so they communicate with Radsim enviroment using the
given language. Reimplement Target agent as a "virtual"
agent. Derive and implement radar target locating
equations. Derive and implement radar data "fusion" using
Bayes Networks.
- Fall 1999 - Hire graduate students. Begin
implementation of example problem domain simulation. Begin
design of problem solution, which includes the negotiation
protocol, the Bayesian networks, and the integration between
them.
Accomplishments
- June 2000
- We have shown the equivalence between an ANTS resource
allocation problem and a service allocation problem, and
have then shown via simulation that this problem can be
solved optimally by a distributed set of agents using our
protocol. A service allocation simulator was built for
this purpose.[more]
- We have determined the precise amount of time and
communications needed by the agents to converge to the
optimal solution.
- Rewrote and extended previous agent code to interface
with Radsim 1.0 using the "node" and "tracker" modules
provided with it. This involved a restructuring of the
agent's communications infrastructure. [more]
- We have formulated a Bayesian approach to target
tracking and, by characterizing it in terms of a Hidden
Markov Model, have found a dynamic programming algorithms
that can solve the tracking problem in quadratic time (as
opposed to exponential time). [more]
- March 2000 -Completed design and implementation of
initial architecture for our radsim agents (including Target
and Sensor agents). Completed initial implementation of
dynamic task-allocation protocol. Completed implementation
of simple sensor fusion algorithm which Targets can use to
determine their location (usually). Formalized Challenge
problem as a dynamic task allocation problem, which lead to
insights into the problem structure and into new possible
approaches. Follow the Radsim links on the left for more
information.
- January 2000 - Abandoned (temporarily?) our Ants
simulator in favor of Radsim simulator. Started building new
agent architecture and algorithms for new problem domain.
- November 1999 - Applet now implements "Blacklist"
algorithms and achieves dynamic resource allocation of Follower
agents to moving Target agents.
- October 1999 - Demo applet with simple coordination
protocol is developed, alpha state.
- August 1999 - Hired several graduate students to work on
the project. Started educating them on project goals,
programming setup, CVS setup, Java skills, Bayesian networks,
and multiagent systems.
- July 1999 - Design example problem to be used for
testing system.
- May 1999 - Start of Project. Attend project
briefing. Begin design and planning.
Technology Transition
New Start
Jose M. Vidal
Last modified: Fri Jul 14 13:26:01 EDT 2000