DARPA
CoAX Stand-alone Contributions
Dartmouth College, UMichigan, MIT Sloan, OBJS
Coalition Agents eXperiment (CoAX)
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/coax/
Stand-alone
Contributions
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Dartmouth Field Observation Agent
MIT Robustness Service
Michigan Coordination Planning Aid
OBJS eGents Communicating via E-mail
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 2
Field Observations (Dartmouth)
• ActComm Project
• Dartmouth, Harvard, RPI, Illinois,
ALPHATECH, Lockheed Martin
• Department of Defense Multidisciplinary
University Research Initiative
• Developing a system to provide network
access to soldiers in the field
• CoAX Goal
• Demonstrate the ease with which the large
ActComm “legacy” system can be integrated
with the rest of CoAX via the DARPA CoABS
Grid
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 3
Field Observations (Dartmouth)
• Team of soldiers
• PDA’s
• Ad-hoc wireless networking
• Soldiers make observations.
• Ground and air traffic
• Personnel and equipment
• Buildings and other structures
• Observations fed into battle-planning systems
(e.g., MBP) through the CoABS Grid.
• In the demo, a team of CoAX soldiers will make
observations to correct Gao misinformation.
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 4
Field Observations (Dartmouth)
I see a
tank!
D’Agents
API
Observation
Agent
Grid
API
Query/
Response
Registration/
Update Stream
Observations
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 5
Observation
Viewer
(9-month demo standalone)
MBP
(18-month demo integrated)
Field Observations (Dartmouth)
29-SEP-2012 13:47.56 OBSERVATION 0018 VEHICLE
Observer : 16.35 N, 35.28 E, Elevation 530 m
Sightline: 270 deg, 0 deg down, 2000 m
Vehicle : Gao, flatbed truck, 3 axles,
heading: 180, speed: 60 km/h
Note : 12 soldiers in flatbed
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 6
The Challenge:
Robust Agent
Coalitions
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Coalitions are open systems
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Agents in open systems will be unreliable
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Dynamic membership, often novel partners
Intermittent bugs (3 per 1000 lines in the best crafted
code) as well as the possibility of malice
Infrastructures can be unreliable
Current failure tolerance approaches are insufficient
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Assume closed systems (e.g. mirroring)
Full rollbacks are unnecessarily inefficient for agents
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 7
The MIT Robustness
Service
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Monitors agent ‘health’ via polling
Responds to agent failure via intelligent task
cancellation & task re-announcement
Maintains reliability information (for failure
avoidance)
Designed for open systems - makes minimal
assumptions about agents
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 8
A Working Grid
Service
Robustness
Service
EH API
Message
Log
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Transparently infers
commitment structures
Assumes (some) agents
support (some of ) EH
API
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CoAX /Tech Briefing - 9
Polling (backup: existing
Grid is-alive? method)
Task re-announce
Cancel-task
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 10
Benefits Validated
Empirically
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Up to 3x speedup and 8x reduced variability vs.
standard timeout-retry approach
Benefits increase with task complexity
(decomposition tree height) and with level of EH
API support
http://ccs.mit.edu/klein/papers/ASES-WP-200005.ps
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 11
Michigan Multilevel
Coordinator Agent
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Analyses the alternative plan spaces of coalition functional
teams that plan independently and act asynchronously
Works top-down with plans chosen by teams to predict
unintended interactions (resource contentions; friendly fire).
Identifies candidate resolutions (timing or action constraints).
Notifies process panel of possible plan conflicts and
computed workarounds.
Operationalizes/enforces coordination decisions selected.
Given more time, isolates and resolves conflicts more
precisely and efficiently.
Allows planning and coordination decisions to be postponed
until runtime conditions become better known.
Packaged as a Grid-aware component that will be proactively
executing and will be utilized by the AIAI Process Panel.
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 12
Michigan Coalition
Coordination Example
Forces begin at aircraft carrier AC
Airforce sorties to C, E, & Q for
Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ)
Logistics delivers humanitarian
aid to refugees at F and R
ArmyDiv1 occupies X to prevent
Agadez forces from reaching
and inciting refugees at R
ArmyDiv2 crosses TEZ to occupy
Y to monitor for Gao crossings
Potential plan conflicts include friendly fire in TEZ on ArmyDiv2, destruction of
roads through E that ArmyDiv2 might need, and contention for sea and rail
transport among army divisions and logistics.
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 13
Coordinated Plans
Hierarchical plan coordination incrementally
recommends coordinated plans that are
increasingly detailed and parallelized
Logistics
P P
Move C1 R, C2
Airforce Fly sorties
Move to X
Army Div 1
Move to Y
Army Div 2
Logistics
Airforce
Army Div 1
Army Div 2
P
Time = 650
0.02 cpu
Move C1sec.R, C2
P
Fly sorties
AC P P Z
Z
X
Move to Y
Time = 500
0.38 cpu sec.
Logistics
Airforce
Army Div 1
Army Div 2
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 14
P
P
Move C1
AC P
R
Move C2 F
Fly sorties
P Z
Z X
Move to Y
Time = 425
6.04 cpu sec.
F
F
Michigan Multilevel
Coordinator Agent
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 15
OBJS eGents:
Agents over Email
Problem
• Dynamic military situations are often disconnected
and asynchronous. Need a scalable way to deliver
agent messages to 1000’s of (wireless) platforms.
• Agent systems are often closed and require a lot of
specialized agent technology. Email is a common
denominator in coalition situations.
Approach
• Thesis: Integration of agent technology with pervasive
Web-ORB-Email backplanes is a route to making agent
technology open, pervasive and robust.
• eGents are agents which communicate over email.
eGents leverages pervasive, robust email infrastructure,
inherits support for disconnected operations, message
queueing, mobile users, firewalls, filtering, logging, and
security. eGents use FIPA or KQML Agent
Communication Language (ACL) encoded in XML. No
ACL parser needed. Status: Prototype, NEO demo,
gridified, on wireless Palm. Spec submitted to FIPA. In
progress: packaging and numerous extensions.
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 16
CoAX Impact
• By 2012 imagine free eGents attached to
sensors, actuators, people, equipment, &
locations as pervasive observers & actors
• Anyone with email can create an agent service
that anyone else can use. New eGent apps can
be downloaded to the field as situations change.
eGents
Inside
Evacuees
Command Post
Medevac
Liaison
Family Member
In one eGents application, each evacuees are given
a Personal Status Monitor, which measures location, vital signs, etc.
The PSM contains an eGent which intermittently communicates to
subscribing entities using email protocols.
OBJS eGents:
Agents over Email
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eGents enabled Digital Assistants
 PDAs and ADAs (autonomous DAs) including sensors, actuators,
cameras, recorders, range finders, …
 are connected by wireless networking (cellular, radio) and
 associated with soldiers, observers, NGOs, ... vehicles, weapon
systems, …, bridges, buildings, ...
 to report status, make observations, take simple actions
 can dynamically accept new or revised tasks
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In the demo, eGents-enabled CoAX observers and equipment will
<exact vignette TBD … monitor status of troops, observers,
equipment, avoid unseen threats>
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Observations fed into battle-planning systems (e.g., process panel &
MBP) through the CoABS Grid and orders & information fed back to
the field.
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 17
OBJS eGents:
Agents over Email
orders &
recommendations
observations &
subscriptions
I see a
tank!
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 18
Any
threats?
Need
fuel!
eGents interoperating with each other
and with an eGent-grid proxy
Might be on machine 2 or anywhere on LAN
or on grid-connected LAN
PSM client
grid agent
Machine 1
installed on evacuee
PSM
server
eGent
other
eGents
Grid
Machine 2
perhaps installed at
command post
eGent
grid
agent
proxy
eGents
platform**
* Java-based
** KVM-based - runs on Palm
uses J2ME CLDC 1.0 FCS (KVM), that is, Java for devices
runs on a "wireless" palm over the CDPD digital cellular network
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 19
other
eGents
eGents
platform*
Email
Server
Machine 3
perhaps installed at
medevac unit
PSM
client
eGent
other
eGents
eGents
platform
All eGents can share one Email server or
they can each have their own
or anything in between
OBJS eGents:
Agents over Email
Miami demo: standalone - 18 month demo: integrated w Process Panel & MBP
CoAX /Tech Briefing - 20