Multiagent Systems : Introduction and Coordination Control

Multiagent systems (MAS) are one of the most exciting and the fastest growing domains in the intelligent resource management and agent-oriented technology, which deals with modeling of autonomous decisions making entities. Recent developments have produced very encouraging results in the novel approach of handling multiplayer interactive systems. In particular, the multiagent system approach is adapted to model, control, manage or test the operations and management of several system applications including multi-vehicles, microgrids, multi-robots, where agents represent individual entities in the network. Each participant is modeled as an autonomous participant with independent strategies and responses to outcomes. They are able to operate autonomously and interact pro-actively with their environment. In recent works, the problem of information consensus is addressed, where a team of vehicles communicate with each other to agree on key pieces of information that enable them to work together in a coordinated fashion. The problem is challenging because communication channels have limited range and there are possibilities of fading and dropout. The book comprises chapters on synchronization and consensus in multiagent systems. It shows that the joint presentation of synchronization and consensus enables readers to learn about similarities and differences of both concepts. It reviews the cooperative control of multi-agent dynamical systems interconnected by a communication network topology. Using the terminology of cooperative control, each system is endowed with its own state variable and dynamics. A fundamental problem in multi-agent dynamical systems on networks is the design of distributed protocols that guarantee consensus or synchronization in the sense that the states of all the systems reach the same value.

It is evident from the results that research in multiagent systems offer opportunities for further developments in theoretical, simulation and implementations. This book attempts to fill this gap and aims at presenting a comprehensive volume that documents theoretical aspects and practical applications.

MagdiSadek Mahmoud obtained PhD. in systems engineering from Cairo University in 1974. He has been a professor of engineering since 1984 and he is now Distinguished Professor at KFUPM, Saudi Arabia. He served on the faculty at universities worldwide: Egypt (CU, AUC), Kuwait (KU), UAE (UAEU), UK (UMIST), USA (Pitt, Case Western), Singapore (Nanyang) and Australia (Adelaide). He lectured in Venezuela (Caracas), Germany (Hanover), UK (Kent, UCL), USA (UoSA), Canada (Montreal), and China (BIT, Yanshan). Dr. Mahmoud is the principal author of 30 books, 25 book-chapters and the author/co-author of more than 600 peer-reviewed papers. He is the recipient of two national, one regional and several university prizes for outstanding research in engineering and applied mathematics.