Coordination and Cooperation in Multi-Agent Systems

SIG

Recently coordination and cooperation have received a great deal of attention by multi-agent researchers. Deriving Methods and protocols for coordination and cooperation in different multi-agent systems is one of the main concerns of multi-agent researchers.

The aim of this SIG is to gather researchers interested in cooperation and coordination in different types of multi-agent systems.

Specifically we are interested in the following subjects:

• Cooperation protocols and models for cooperation
• Conflict resolution in multi-agent systems
• Teamwork and coalition formation methods
• Coordination techniques
• Coordination languages and systems
• Implementation of multi-agent systems with specific attention to cooperation and coordination methods

We plan to hold an international workshop on coordination and cooperation in Tehran/Iran around February 2003. We also can set some panels on this issue in the next RoboCup symposium. We will organize some evaluation games on RoboCup soccer simulation and RoboCupRescue simulation regarding cooperation and coordination.

Homepage of the SIG is available at http://ce.sharif.edu/~ccsig. The mailing list is ccsiglist@ce.sharif.edu. For subscribing you can send an email to majordomo@ce.sharif.edu and in the content write “subscribe ccsiglist”.

List of organizing committee (not completed yet):

- Jafar Habibi: Professor of Computer Department at Sharif University of Technology and leader of Arvand Team (in soccer simulation league) and Arian (in rescue simulation league). Also he is the chair of CSI (Computer Society of Iran). He has initiated many research projects in multi agent systems in Sharif University of Technology.

- Kambiz Badie: Head researcher at PTT reaserch center. He has many years of experience in autonomous agents and multi agent systems and has published many papers.

- Luis Paulo Reis: Lecturer at the University of Porto and researcher at the Distributed Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Lab at the same University. His research is focused on developing new coordination methodologies for complex and dynamic systems.

- Peter Stone: Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on machine learning, multiagent systems, and e-commerce. He has been involved in RoboCup since 1996 with teams in the simulation and small-size soccer leagues. He was the co-chair of the RoboCup 2000 symposium.

- Mazda Ahmadi is a student of computer engineering at Sharif University of Technology. He has done three years of research on cooperative agents. His main research interest is cooperative agents in fully dynamic environments.

- Gal A. Kaminka is an assistant professor at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He has been involved with RoboCup since 1997, participating in the simulation soccer and coach competitions, and holding organizational roles including chair of the simulation league in 2001, and co-chair of the RoboCup Symposium 2002.

- Tomoichi Takahashi: Professor of College of Business Administration and Information Science at Chubu University. His research is focused on analysis oof motions of objects, behavior of humans. He has been involved with RoboCup since 1997. He was committee member of soccer simulation league 2000 and rescue simulation league 2001, and chair of rescue simulation league 2002.

- Daniel Polani is Principal Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. He is interested in emergent and biologically inspired methods of learning and adaptation, as well as the mathematical characterization of collective behaviour.

Members can be anybody who is interested in coordination and cooperation protocols, methods and applications.