decision theory; distributed control; intelligent control
Description/Abstract
An approach to local reactive coordinated intelligent control based on the concept of an epistemic system, together with a principle of action that may be exercised locally, is presented. An epistemic system provides a mechanism for agents to characterize their knowledge corpora, options, goals, and beliefs. Levi's rule of epistemic utility provides a principle of action for decision making by comparing the informational value of rejection with the belief of correctness. Decisions are made locally and reactively, rather than globally. Coordination is implemented between agents by sharing and learning the epistemic systems of other agents. The resulting coordination model is nonhierarchical and heterogeneous, and its does not require explicit communication between agents.
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