Development of a real-time multi-agent system: A practical study on ensuring timing correctness

摘要

This paper assesses the possibility of using a popular middleware platform based on a multiple agent paradigm in full compliance with Real Time Specifications for Java. Two reference scenarios are discussed: one testing thread-to-thread activation (creating and releasing threads), the other featuring agent-to-agent execution for road traffic simulation (creating and releasing agents). These preemptive tasks must be scheduled with minimum delay, therefore, timing correctness as thread-to-thread activation latency and agent-to-agent execution latency is a critical performance index. Given this requirement, the study presented describes an empirical investigation of timing and capacity impact on two platforms: Solaris and Windows in both RT and non-RT versions. The experiments showed the impact on performance of platform type and of capacity with the non-RT approach in particular yielding less accuracy but better stability in agent execution. Suggestions as to how this real-time multi-agent approach might be made more effective are included in the paper.