Multi-Agent Systems

Wiebe van der Hoek, Michael J. Wooldridge

Abstract: Publisher SummaryThe discipline of knowledge representation focuses on the way to represent and reason about environments with various different properties, usually with the goal of making decisions, for example, about how best to act in this environment. This chapter discusses the state of the art in knowledge representation formalisms for multiagent systems. It divides the work in this area into two categories. In the first category, there are approaches that attempt to represent the cognitive state of rational agents and characterize logically the way such a state leads a rational agent to act. It begins by motivating this approach. It then describes four of the best-known such logical frameworks and discusses the possible roles that such logics can play in helping to engineer artificial agents. In the second category, there are approaches based on representing the strategic structure of a multiagent environment and, in particular, the powers that agents have, either individually or in coalitions. The chapter also discusses coalition logic, alternating-time temporal logic (ATL), and epistemic extensions.