Abstract
In agent theory and agent programming, goals constitute the motivational attitude of rational agents and form the key concept in explaining and generating their pro-active behavior. Pursuing multiple goals simultaneously might pose problems for agents as the plans for achieving them may conflict. We argue that a BDI-based agent programming language should provide constructs to allow an agent programmer to implement agents that: 1) do not pursue goals with conflicting plans simultaneously, and 2) can choose from goals with conflicting plans. This paper presents an explicit and generic mechanism to process incompatible goals, i.e., goals with conflicting plans. The proposed mechanism can be integrated in existing BDI-based agent programming languages. We discuss different strategies to process incompatible goals based on a given conflict relation and show some properties and relations between these strategies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Pokahr, A., Braubach, L., Lamersdorf, W.: Jadex: A BDI Reasoning Engine. In: [19], pp. 149–174
Winikoff, M., Padgham, L., Harland, J., Thangarajah, J.: Jack intelligent agents: An industrial strength platform. In: [19], pp.175–193
Bordini, R., Hübner, J., Vieira, R.: Jason and the Golden Fleece of agent-oriented programming. In: [19], pp.3–37
Dastani, M., van Riemsdijk, M., Meyer, J.: Programming Multi-Agent Systems in 3APL. In: [19], pp.39–67
Dix, J., Zhang, Y.: IMPACT: A Multi-Agent Framework with Declarative Semantics. In: [19], pp.69–122
Fallah-Seghrouchni, A.E., Suna, A.: CLAIM and SyMPA: A Programming Environment for Intelligent and Mobile Agents. In: [19], pp. 95–122
de Boer, F., Hindriks, K., van der Hoek, W., Meyer, J.J.: A Verification Framework for Agent Programming with Declarative Goals. Journal of Applied Logic (2007)
Sardina, S., Padgham, L.: Goals in the context of BDI plan failure and planning. In: Proc. of AAMAS (2008)
Dastani, M., Meyer, J.: A Practical Agent Programming Language. In: Proc. of the fifth Int. Workshop on Programming Multi-agent Systems (2007)
Winikoff, M., Padgham, J.H.L., Thangarajah, J.: Declarative and Procedural Goals in Intelligent Agent Systems. In: Proc. of the Eighth Int. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2002) (2002)
Dastani, M., van Riemsdijk, M.B., Meyer, J.: Goal types in agent programming. In: Proc. of AAMAS, pp. 1285–1287 (2006)
van Riemsdijk, M.B., Dastani, M., Meyer, J., de Boer, F.S.: Goal-oriented modularity in agent programming. In: Proc. of AAMAS, pp. 1271–1278 (2006)
Hindriks, K.V., de Boer, F.S., van der Hoek, W., Meyer, J.J.C.: Agent programming with declarative goals. In: Castelfranchi, C., Lespérance, Y. (eds.) ATAL 2000. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1986, pp. 228–243. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
van Riemsdijk, M.B., Dastani, M., Meyer, J.J.C.: Semantics of declarative goals in agent programming. In: Proc. of AAMAS, pp. 133–140 (2005)
Bratman, M.: Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1987)
Morreale, V., Bonura, S., Francaviglia, G., Centineo, F., Cossentino, M., Gaglio, S.: Goal-Oriented Development of BDI Agents: The PRACTIONIST Approach. In: IAT 2006: Proc. of the IEEE/WIC/ACM int. conf. on Intelligent Agent Technology (2006)
Pokahr, A., Braubach, L., Lamersdorf, W.: A Goal Deliberation Strategy for BDI Agent Systems. In: Eymann, T., Klügl, F., Lamersdorf, W., Klusch, M., Huhns, M.N. (eds.) MATES 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3550, pp. 82–93. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Thangarajah, J., Padgham, L., Winikoff, M.: Detecting & Avoiding Interference Between Goals in Intelligent Agents. In: Proc. of the 18th Int. Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2003)
Bordini, R., Dastani, M., Dix, J., Fallah-Seghrouchni, A.E. (eds.): Multi-Agent Programming: Languages, Platforms and Applications. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Tinnemeier, N.A.M., Dastani, M., Meyer, JJ.C. (2008). Goal Selection Strategies for Rational Agents. In: Dastani, M., El Fallah Seghrouchni, A., Leite, J., Torroni, P. (eds) Languages, Methodologies and Development Tools for Multi-Agent Systems. LADS 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5118. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85058-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85058-8_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-85057-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-85058-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)