Belief revision in multi-agent systems
Benedita Malheiro, Nicholas R. Jennings, Eugénio Oliveira · ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) · 1994
. The ability to respond sensibly to changing and conflicting beliefs is an integral part of intelligent agency. To this end, we outline the design and implementation of a Distributed Assumption-based Truth Maintenance System (DATMS) appropriate for controlling cooperative problem solving in a dynamic real world multi-agent community. Our DATMS works on the principle of local coherence which means that different agents can have different perspectives on the same fact provided that these stances are appropriately justified. The belief revision algorithm is presented, the meta-level code needed to ensure that all system-wide queries can be uniquely answered is described, and the DATMS' implementation in a general purpose multi-agent shell is discussed. 1. INTRODUCTION In many AI applications problem solving entities often have to make decisions based on partial, imprecise, and ever changing information. However in systems in which several agents cooperate with one another within a dece...