Conflict Resolution Strategies for Cooperating Expert Agents

Abstract

Problem-solving approaches which incorporate specialized cooperating expert agents seem intuitively appropriate for many complex problems. However, integrating diverse expertise requires that the experts have some mechanism for dealing with conflicts that occur during problem-solving. We describe the Cooperating Experts Framework (CEF), a framework developed to support cooperative problem-solving among sets of knowledge-based systems with limited information about each other’s local states. The systems solve subproblems relevant to their specific expertise and integrate their efforts using conflict resolution strategies that are appropriate to the problem solving context. In choosing a strategy CEF makes tradeoffs between the potential quality of a solution, the amount of processing required to apply a strategy, and the effect of local changes on the global solution. We also describe TEAM, a system implemented in the CEF framework, that designs steam condensers.