Artificial immunity based cooperative sustainment framework for multi-agent systems

Abstract

Many studies show that the modelling concept of multi-agent systems (MAS) can be very useful for many industries, such as automated production systems, modern distribution centres and warehouses, port container terminals and transportation systems, etc. However, when applying them to real life where unpredictable factors exists that lead to agent failures, they will not be able to perform as expected or even failed completely. A MAS that can withstand and recover from unpredictable failures is much welcomed by many industries that adopt automation as an integral part of their businesses. Therefore, we propose a cooperative sustainment framework to help MAS to recover the failed agent nodes and extend the system life using artificial immunity inspired design. To verify the usefulness of the design, we carry out some experiments and the result is encouraging. © 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited.