Dynamic Agencies and Multi-Robot Systems

The study of the development of cooperative multi-agent systems is an issue of fundamental importance in the field of distributed artificial intelligence. We present a new type of multi-agent system, called dynamic agency, that is aimed to overcome the critical problem of having each agent performing both several specific operation functions and one uniform cooperation function. Dynamic agency is built up starting from fixed intelligent agents, providing only specific operative capabilities, that are visited by an unique mobile intelligent agent, which provides uniform cooperation, by duplicating itself on each fixed intelligent agent. The construction of a dynamic agency and the resolution of a problem are realized in several steps that are illustrated in the paper.