Check here for updates regarding the course.
| Game 1 | JAS vs. SFK |
| Game 2 | GOOOOOOOAL vs. RoboGallon |
| Game 3 | Consolation match |
| Game 4 | Championship match |
Intelligent agents are software programs that can sense their environment, choose rational actions based on their percepts, and execute these actions. If an agent does all of this without the aid of a human, then it is generally considered autonomous. Often, agents interact with other agents, either by cooperating or competing with each other; such environments are called multiagent systems. Agents can be embedded in completely electronic environments such as the Web or a simulation, or may actually be robots "living" in the real world. The potential applications of agents are numerous -- including web search assistants, travel advisors, electronic secretaries, bidders in on-line auctions, tutoring systems, and actors in games or simulations. Some have even predicted a future in which agent technology is embedded in everyday items, allowing household objects to coordinate actions in order to better serve the home owner. The course will cover the underlying theory of agents, the common agent architectures, methods of cooperation, and the potential applications for agents. In order to gain a better understanding of the concepts, students will construct their own agents for solving different types of problems.
For details about course content, grading, assignments, and office hours, see the class syllabus.
There will be two homeworks, which are written assignments and worth 10% each. There will be two solo programming projects (worth 15% each) and a large team project worth 20%. In addition to handing out assignments in class, electronic copies will be made available here.
Unless specified otherwise, all readings are from our textbook, An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems by Michael Wooldridge.
| Reading | Due |
|---|---|
| Read Ch. 1-2 (pp. 1-45) | 8/26 |
| Read Ch. 3 (pp. 47-62) | 8/31 |
| Review Vacuum World simulation design Read Foundations of a Logical Approach to Agent Programming by Lesperance et al. | 9/2 |
| Read Ch. 4 (pp. 65-86) | 9/7 |
| Read Plans and Resource-Bounded Practical Reasoning by Bratman, Israel, and Pollack. Note: Figure 1 is missing, a copy can be found here. | 9/9 |
| Read Sect. 5.1-5.2 (pp. 89-97) Read A Robust Layereed Control System for a Mobile Robot by Rodney Brooks |
9/14 |
| Read Sect. 5.3 (pp. 97-103) Read Unifying Control in a Layered Agent Architecture by Fischer, Muller, and Pischel |
9/16 |
| Read Sect. 6.1-6.4 (pp. 105-114) | 9/21 |
| Read Sect. 6.5-6.7 (pp. 114-126) | 9/23 |
| Read Sect. 9.1-9.5 (pp. 189-200) | 9/28 |
| Read Sect. 9.6-9.7 (pp. 200-222) | 9/30 |
| Read Sect. 7.1-7.3 (pp. 129-148) | 10/12 |
| Read Sect. 7.4 (pp. 148-160) | 10/14 |
| Read Sect. 8.1-8.2 (pp. 163-180) | 10/21 |
| Read Sect. 8.3-8.4 (pp. 180-187) Read OWL Web Ontology Language Guide, Smith, Welty and McGuinness, eds. | 10/26 |
| Read The RoboCup Synthetic Agent Challenge 97 by Kitano et al. Read The CMUnited-98 Champion Simulator Team by Stone, Veloso and Riley | 10/28 |
| Read The Robocup Soccer Server Users Manual | 11/2 |
| Read Towards Flexible Teamwork by Milind Tambe | 11/18 |
| Read Sect. 12.1-12.7 (pp. 267-288) | 11/23 |
| Read Ch. 11 (pp. 245-265) Read A Plug-in Architecture for Generating Collaborative Agent Responses by Rich et al. Read A Scaleable Comparison-Shopping Agent for the World-Wide Web by Doorenbos et al. | 11/29 |
| Read Electric Elves: Applying Agent Technology to Support Human Organizations by Chalupsky et al. Read Toward Semantic Interoperability in Agent-Based Coalition Command Systems by Allsopp et al. | 12/2 |