Publication - The Soft Real-Time Agent Control Architecture

Authors: Horling, Bryan; Lesser, Victor; Vincent, Regis; and Wagner, Tom
Title: The Soft Real-Time Agent Control Architecture
Abstract: Real-time control has become increasingly important as technologies are moved from the lab into real world situations. The complexity associated with these systems increases as control and autonomy are distributed, due to such issues as temporal and ordering constraints, shared resources, and the lack of a complete and consistent world view. In this paper we describe a soft real-time architecture designed to address these requirements, motivated by challenges encountered in a real-time distributed sensor allocation environment. The system features the ability to generate schedules respecting temporal, structural and resource constraints, to merge new goals with existing ones, and to detect and handle unexpected results from activities. We will cover a suite of technologies being employed, including quantitative task representation, alternative plan selection, partial-order scheduling, schedule consolidation and execution and conflict resolution in an uncertain environment. Technologies which facilitate on-line real-time control, including meta-level accounting, schedule caching and variable time granularities are also discussed.
Keywords: Agent Control, ANTs, Control, DTC, JAF, Real Time, Scheduling, TAEMS
Publication: UMass Computer Science Technical Report 2002-14, Num: 02-14
Publisher: University of Massachusetts
Date: 2002
Sources: PS: /Documents/bhorling/02-14.ps.gz
PDF: /Documents/02-14.pdf
Notes: See also this paper.
Reference: Horling, Bryan; Lesser, Victor; Vincent, Regis; and Wagner, Tom. The Soft Real-Time Agent Control Architecture. UMass Computer Science Technical Report 2002-14, Number 02-14, University of Massachusetts. 2002. See also this paper.
bibtex: 
@techreport{Horling-363,
  author    = "Bryan Horling and Victor Lesser and Regis Vincent
               and Tom Wagner",
  title     = "{The Soft Real-Time Agent Control Architecture}",
  number    = "02-14",
  institution = "University of Massachusetts",
  type      = "Computer Science Technical Report",
  year      = "2002",
  url       = "http://mas.cs.umass.edu/paper/363",
}