A multi-agent approach to intelligent monitoring in smart grids

In this paper, we propose a scalable multi-agent architecture to give support to smart grids, paying special attention to the intelligent monitoring of distribution substations. The data gathered by multiple sensors are used by software agents that are responsible for monitoring different aspects or events of interest, such as normal voltage values or unbalanced intensity values that can end up blowing fuses and decreasing the quality of service of end consumers. The knowledge bases of these agents have been built by means of a formal model for normality analysis that has been successfully used in other surveillance domains. The architecture facilitates the integration of new agents and can be easily configured and deployed to monitor different environments. The experiments have been conducted over a power distribution network.     

An iterative learning approach to formation control of multi-agent systems

In this paper, an efficient framework is proposed to the formation control problem of multiple agents with unknown nonlinear dynamics, by means of the iterative learning approach. In particular, a distributed D-type iterative learning scheme is developed for the multi-agent system with switching topology, whose switching time and sequence are allowed to be varied at different iterations according to the actual trajectories of agents, and a sufficient condition is derived to ensure that the desired formation can be always preserved from the initial starting location to the final one after some iterations. Simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

An approach to expert control of interactive software systems

Expert problem-solving strategies in many domains require the use of detailed mathematical techniques coupled with experiential knowledge about how and when to use the appropriate techniques. In many of these domains, such techniques are made available to experts in large software packages. In attempting to build expert systems for these domains, we wish to make use of these packages, and are therefore faced with an important problem: how to integrate the existing software, and knowledge about its use, into a practical expert system. The expert knowledge is used, in dynamic selection and interpretation of appropriate programs and parameters, to reach a successful goal in the problem solving. We describe the framework of a hybrid expert system for representing problem-solving knowledge in these domains. This hybrid system may be characterized as consisting of a production system and mathematical methods. The software package is reorganized as necessary to map it into the mathematical-method representation of a hybrid system. This approach has evolved out of an effort to build an expert system for performing well-log analysis, ELAS (expert log analysis system).     

An approach to implementing an intelligent web search

The retrieval efficiency of the presently used search tools cannot be significantly improved： A ＂bag of words＂ interpretation causes loosing semantics of texts. The functional approach to present English texts in the memory of computers makes it possible to keep semantic relations between words. These relations can be taken into account when indexing documents and when performing searching. Utilizing this approach, it is possible to use a natural language to express user queries. In many cases, this way is more usual for users to describe their information needs compared to the keyword style. The factoid question answering task is one of the possible its applications. Key components of the prototype of a system utilizing this approach are discussed.     

An intelligent approach to monitor and control the blanking process

Sensory fusion can be used to infer and analyse complex phenomena and detect changes in a process from a set of measurements. This paper proposes to use Neural Network modelling to monitor product quality of blanking by assessing changes in tool geometry, material quality and tool configuration. The approach may also be used to detect internal and external fractures in the products of blanking. The neural network model is fed with representative parameters, extracted from acoustic signals emitted during fracture, the corresponding waveform and force/displacement data. The neural network model is used, after training to correlate the extracted features of various signals to changes in blanking process parameters such as tool geometry, material hardness and tools clearance. A computerised data-acquisition system, using specialised software and hardware is used to draw from several transducers to record data of the experiments. A total of 192 experiments were performed, using different blanking configurations and materials. This data is used to train the neural network model, which may be integrated with other elements of the control system, to provide a fully automated, real-time supervisory system for blanking. The system could be used to sort components, shutdown the press or alert operators in the event of manufacturing-related defects in the operating cycle.     

An immersive multi-agent system for interactive applications

This paper presents an interactive multi-agent system based on a fully immersive virtual environment. A user can interact with the virtual characters in real time via an avatar by changing their moving behavior. Moreover, the user is allowed to select any character as the avatar to be controlled. A path planning algorithm is proposed to address the problem of dynamic navigation of individual and groups of characters in the multi-agent system. A natural interface is designed for the interaction between the user and the virtual characters, as well as the virtual environment, based on gesture recognition. To evaluate the efficiency of the dynamic navigation method, performance results are provided. The presented system has the potential to be used in the training and evaluation of emergency evacuation and other real-time applications of crowd simulation with interaction.     

An evolutionary approach to deception in multi-agent systems

Understanding issues of trust and deception are key to designing robust, reliable multi-agent systems. This paper builds on previous work which examined the use of auctions as a model for exploring the concept of deception in such systems. We have previously described two forms of deceptive behaviour which can occur in a simulated repeated English auction. The first of these types of deception involves sniping or late bidding, which not only allows an agent to conceal its true valuation for an item, but also potentially allows it to win an item for which it may not possess the highest valuation. The second deceptive strategy involves the placing of false bids which are designed to reduce an opponent’s potential profit. In this work we examine the potential shortcomings of those two strategies and investigate whether or not their individual strengths can be combined to produce a successful hybrid deceptive strategy.     

A multi-agent affective interactive MAGDM approach and its applications

Traditional multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) methods focus on weights calculation of sub-attributes and experts' preferences, but lack the discussion on the decision-makers' affective interaction, and its influence on the decision preference and group consistency. To address this problem, the present study proposed a new multilayer affective computing model based on “personality–mood–emotion” pattern, under the multi-agent decision system framework. In addition, we introduced the group trending index and affection-preference incentive mechanism, which can help simulate MAGDM process and learn group experts' decision preferences. Further, we proposed a new multi-agent affective interactive MAGDM (MAAI-MAGDM) method, where we defined a novel group convergence index and an alternative decision entropy to explain the convergence process of decision and group consistency. Compared to the traditional MAGDM approaches, the proposed MAAI-MAGDM method fully considered the affective features of each expert, reduced the dependence on aggregation operators and weight analysis, alleviated the workload of group experts, and effectively reduced the complexity of decision-making calculation process. Finally, we verified that the proposed method can effectively assist the decision-making processes by employing two numerical cases.     

An intelligent approach to position control of a hard disk drive

A new self-tuning neuro-proportional+integral+derivative (PID) controller is proposed and applied to position control of the magnetic head in a hard disk drive. The proportional, integral, and derivative gains are tuned using two types of neural network, which reduces the burden of trial and error by human operators. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method over several conventional control methods. This work was presented in part at the Fifth International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 26–28, 2000     

An individualistic approach to social action in multi-agent systems

In this paper, we propose an individualistic formal model of coordination and social action in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). In the first stage, the agents recognize potential for cooperation by reasoning about how they depend on each other. In the second phase, the agents negotiate directly: Following ‘social’ strategies, the agents propose, accept or refuse different offers until they reach a ‘fair’ agreement. The process itself is seen as an exchange of commissive speech acts, through which the agents adopt social commitments. Finally, joint commitments and societies are defined in individual terms. Joint plans are seen as deals and team activity as a special case of social activity. Moreover, agents are allowed to relax their initial goals and negotiate over compatible subgoals. They will cooperate as long as they have common interests. This approach improves previous models of coordination in three ways: (a) it is simpler, because team and plan formation are considered in the same stage; (b) it is clearer, because there are not representational gaps along the coordination process; (c) it is more comprehensive, because it is applicable to MAS in general, not only to Cooperative Problem Solving (CPS).     

An intelligent control and decision approach for adaptive systems

An intelligent control and decision-making (ICD) approach that integrates expert systems technology with adaptive algorithms is presented. The controller parameters of adaptive systems can be determined using human expertise and knowledge, and they can also be adjusted based on active monitoring and identification. Decision-making, fine tuning and inexact reasoning provide the end-user and the control engineers with a natural and integrated methodology for use with intelligent control systems. Computer simulation results demonstrate the utility of the proposed technique that is an effective intelligent control and decision approach. The ICD system is implemented using a Lisp based expert system shell on an IBM PC.     

An interpretive approach for interactive real-time control through a network

The CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator represents a large industrial control problem, with the additional complication that the control strategies are not fixed. Right from the beginning, it was decided to use an interpretive language for the control process. The main goal of this approach was to reduce the amount of programming effort needed for a proper control of the accelerator, by allowing the actual users — physicists, engineers and technicians — to write the control programs they needed. It very quickly appeared that this method was ideal for providing interactive tools for a control system based on a network.The requirement for interactive network control has been implemented by leaving to the user the choice of those parts of the network best suited for the execution of sections of his program. For that reason interpreter instructions have been defined, allowing the user to define where in the network a logical unit of his algorithm should be executed, and where individual items of the data should be stored.This strategy allows easy access to all the hardware through a distributed data-base. The interpreter being basically a string handler, equipment control can be packed into a module which is called from the program through a name with a standard input-output scheme. All this allows algorithm exportation, while network transfers are minimized.Such a system has been in operation since 1976. Many non-professional programmers are regularly writing or modifying ‘network procedures’ for everchanging control purposes. The simplicity and flexibility of the interpretive method has enabled many technical innovations to be installed over the years, and some of these are described.     

An elementary state space approach to RH optimal control

This paper presents a new elementary approach to the H-infinity optimal control problem. No knowledge about function spaces is needed to derive the solutions. Only a few results in linear system theory, some matrix manipulations and the classical Cauchy integral theorem are used.     

An interactive space that learns to influence human behavior

A key question in the design of intelligent environments is how a space can influence the actions of its users, and how such behavior can be learned. We present the results of experiments conducted as part of the Ada project, an interactive entertainment exhibit deployed at the Swiss national exhibition Expo.02. We used a learning model called distributed adaptive control (DAC) that is based on the animal learning paradigms of classical and operant conditioning. DAC has been developed using mobile robots in foraging tasks. Here, it was applied to the learning of effective cues for guiding visitors in a given direction. Our results show that, by using this learning mechanism, Ada was able to influence the behavior of visitors by learning to deploy particular types of cues. Many visitors could be induced to move toward a region of the space that they normally avoided visiting-an effect that can be seen as a spatial classification of visitors into interactive and noninteractive categories. In our analysis, we also introduce a measure of human activity that combines different types of data to capture key aspects of human behavior in interactive spaces.     

An Approach to Intelligent Speech Production System

In the paper an intelligent speech production system is established by using language information processing technology.The concept of bi-directional grammar is proposed in Chinese language information processing and a corresponding Chinese characteristic network is completed.Correct text can be generated through grammar parsing and some additional rules.According to the generated text the system generates speech which has good quality in naturalness and intelligibility using Chinese Text-to-Speech Conversion System.     

An approach to intelligent automated window management

The CUBRICON Intelligent Window Manager (CIWM) is a knowledge-based system that automates windowing operations. The CIWM is a component of CUBRICON, a prototype knowledge-based multi-media human-computer interface. CUBRICON accepts inputs and generates outputs using integrated multiple media/modalities including speech, printed/typed natural language, tables, forms, maps, graphics, and pointing gestures. The CIWM automatically performs window management functions on CUBRICON's color and monochrome screens. These functions include window creation, sizing, placement, removal, and organization. These operations are accomplished by the CIWM without direct human inputs, although the system provides for user override of the CIWM decisions.The motivation for automated window management is based on the premise that, by freeing the user's cognitive and temporal resources from the task of managing the human-computer interface, more of these resources are available for the user's application domain activities. As the problems and tasks confronting computer users become more complex and information intensive, the potential of this approach for improving overall performance is enhanced. Recent research discussed in this paper indicates that, for some database management tasks, a significant portion of the user's time is spent in managing the window-based interface. If these findings are representative of the larger range of computer-based tasks that use windowing systems, the concept of automated window management offers great potential for enhancing human performance on these computer-based tasks.This paper provides a brief overview of the CUBRICON system and describes the CIWM and its underlying design principles and premises. The following important CIWM features are discussed: the hybrid tiled and overlapped approach to window layout; an algorithm for determining the importance of a window based on its contents, relation to the ongoing dialogue, time of creation, frequency of use, and recency of use; and an approach to determining window size based on clutter and object resolution requirements. Actual interactive examples are provided to illustrate the CIWM functionality. Results of an evaluation of CUBRICON support the design. Those results which pertain specifically to the CIWM are presented. Limitations and applicability of this research are also discussed.     

An interactive approach to facilities design using microcomputers

Facilities design is an industrial engineering activity which can benefit greatly from a methodology which effectively combines the quantitative optimum seeking approach of computer implemented algorithmic techniques and the creativity and perception of the human designer. FLING (Facility Layout using INteractive Graphics) offers such an approach to facility design. Moreover, FLING is programmed in BASIC to run on the IBM-PC microcomputer (with 64K memory and a single disk drive). It makes full use of the personal computer color graphics. FLING is a highly interactive computer-assisted (not computer-generated) procedure which has clear advantages over manual techniques and eliminates the rework which is often necessary to make computer-generated layouts functional. This article describes the FLING program and its use. An illustrative example is given.     

An interactive approach to mining gene expression data

Effective identification of coexpressed genes and coherent patterns in gene expression data is an important task in bioinformatics research and biomedical applications. Several clustering methods have recently been proposed to identify coexpressed genes that share similar coherent patterns. However, there is no objective standard for groups of coexpressed genes. The interpretation of co-expression heavily depends on domain knowledge. Furthermore, groups of coexpressed genes in gene expression data are often highly connected through a large number of "intermediate" genes. There may be no clear boundaries to separate clusters. Clustering gene expression data also faces the challenges of satisfying biological domain requirements and addressing the high connectivity of the data sets. In this paper, we propose an interactive framework for exploring coherent patterns in gene expression data. A novel coherent pattern index is proposed to give users highly confident indications of the existence of coherent patterns. To derive a coherent pattern index and facilitate clustering, we devise an attraction tree structure that summarizes the coherence information among genes in the data set. We present efficient and scalable algorithms for constructing attraction trees and coherent pattern indices from gene expression data sets. Our experimental results show that our approach is effective in mining gene expression data and is scalable for mining large data sets.     

An intelligent multi-agent e-services method—An international telecommunication example

The online services of B2B e-commerce have had to face a challenge resulting from the diverse services built on heterogeneous platforms that must work together in an integrated and seamless manner. Today, businesses have accumulated large numbers of online services that run and reside on a variety of environments. Furthermore, they have different workflows and operational support systems that need to interact with their legacy systems. The result has been chaotic and disruptive.We developed a new framework, artifact, and performance model with which to address this problem. A multi-agent e-service system was developed to cope with dynamics and upheaval. We used a customer-centric viewpoint with supply chains both upstream and downstream. An implementation was performed to determine problems in its development. Two simple live case studies were conducted to illustrate the model's feasibility and validity.