An Abstract Framework for Non-Cooperative Multi-Agent Planning

Abstract

In non-cooperative multi-agent planning environments, it is essential to have a system that enables the agents’ strategic behavior. It is also important to consider all planning phases, i.e., goal allocation, strategic planning, and plan execution, in order to solve a complete problem. Currently, we have no evidence of the existence of any framework that brings together all these phases for non-cooperative multi-agent planning environments. In this work, an exhaustive study is made to identify existing approaches for the different phases as well as frameworks and different applicable techniques in each phase. Thus, an abstract framework that covers all the necessary phases to solve these types of problems is proposed. In addition, we provide a concrete instantiation of the abstract framework using different techniques to promote all the advantages that the framework can offer. A case study is also carried out to show an illustrative example of how to solve a non-cooperative multi-agent planning problem with the presented framework. This work aims to establish a base on which to implement all the necessary phases using the appropriate technologies in each of them and to solve complex problems in different domains of application for non-cooperative multi-agent planning settings.