"Criticality-Sensitive Coordination"

06/02/06: 10:30 AM, webcast
11th Floor Large Conference Room
Host: Jafar Adibi, schedule

Abstract: In this work, we address the problem of coordinating the distributed execution of plans and schedules by multiple agents subject to a number of different execution uncertainties. The coordination of multi-agent teams in uncertain, dynamic domains is a challenging problem requiring the fusion of techniques from many disciplines. We describe an approach based on the dynamic and selective use of a family of different problem-solving strategies that combine stochastic state estimation with repair-based and heuristic-guided planning and scheduling techniques. This approach is implemented as a cognitive problem-solving architecture that combines (i) a deliberative scheduler, which performs partially-centralized solution repair, (ii) an opportunistic scheduler, which locally optimizes resource utilization for plan enhancement, and (iii) a downgrader, which proactively guides the execution into regions of higher likelihood of success. We characterize the complexity of the problem through examples and experiments, and discusses the advantages and effectiveness of the implemented solution.

About Pedro Szekely: Pedro Szekely is a Project Leader at the Information Sciences Institute and a Research Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Southern California. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Szekely joined USC ISI in 1988 and has led projects on human computer interaction (MASTERMIND), semantic web (WebScripter), negotiation systems and resource allocation and scheduling (CAMERA), and distributed coordination of military plans for units on the field (Criticality-Sensitive Coordination). His current research interests include decision support, human-computer interaction and resource allocation for distributed planning and scheduling. Dr. Szekely has published papers in human-computer interaction, semantic web and resource allocation. He has been chair for the Intelligent User Interfaces Conference and the User Interface Software and Technology conferences, served in the program committee and been a reviewer in conferences in human computer interaction.

Last updated: Mon Jun 19 17:44:06 2006