Agent-Based Approach for Ship Damage Control

We here introduce a Multi-Agent System (MAS) approach for solving the crew resources assignment problem whenever a ship, under attack, suffers several damages and, thus, priorities must be assigned in order for it to survive. In the designed system, the ship is the MAS environment and the attacker, equipment, crew and officers (these last ones seen as decision makers) are represented through agents. Decisions on resources assignment are taken after a negotiation process and using an utility-based selection process. Agent-based system design was accomplished by following a systematic Agent Oriented Software Engineering approach, called PORTO, leading to the specification and the implementation of the system.