A large-scale multi-agent system for navy personnel distribution

In the USNavy,at the endof eachsailor's tour of duty, he or she is assigned to a newjob. TheNavyemployssome 280people,called detailers, full timeto effect thesenew assignments. TheIDA(Intelligent Distribution Agent) prototype was designed and built to automate, in a cognitively plausible manner, the job of the human detailers. Thatmodelis beingredesignedto functionas a multi-agentsystem.Thisis not a trivial matterdueto the fact that there wouldneed to be approximately350,000 individualagents. Thereare also manyissues relating to howthe agents interact and howall entities involved, including humans,exercise their autonomy.This paper describes boththe IDAprototypeand the Multi-AgentIDA systembeingcreatedfromit. Wewill also discussseveral of the majorissues regardingthe design,interaction, and autonomyof the variousagentsinvolved.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: CONNECTION
• Authors: Lee McCauley, Stan Franklin
• Keywords: CONNECTION 2002, Distribution Agent, Plausible Manner, Timeto Effect