Component-Based Agent Frameworks And SoccerBeans 12/4/2018 Component-Based Agent Frameworks And SoccerBeans Hrishikesh J. Goradia CSCE 782 Fall 2003 University of South Carolina December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Component-Based Agent Framework Component-Based Software Engineering Techniques Current Agent Framework Development Techniques Component-Based Agent Framework December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Component-Based Agent Framework Applications Domain specific Agent Framework Development Environment Component Based Agent Framework CBAF specifications December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Component-Based Agent Framework Applications Domain specific Agent Framework Development Environment Component Based Agent Framework CBAF specifications Components encapsulate the underlying complexities of the framework Designing MAS using CBAF is simple CBAF is domain-specific December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans CBAF Specifications Agent framework must be designed as a set of independent, self-contained, highly specialized components. Commonalities of various applications in a domain must be discovered and developed as domain-specific components in the framework. A component must be interface-centric and architecture-centric. Components must be designed such that each performs a unique, singular function. Conversely, every function to be performed by an agent in a domain application must be defined as a component in the framework. December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans CBAF Specifications Framework designers must strive for the development of “context-free” components. The agent framework must provide a look-up service for the agents. Message transport must be facilitated through event triggering. The framework must facilitate the integration of its components to create different agent plans (also called as activities). It must also provide a way to compose these activities with the individual agents. Agent framework must include the following types of components: Agent component(s) Activity component(s) Decision components Behavior components December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Sample CBAF Implementation (RoboCup domain) Behavior Components kick catch dash move Decision Components spatial AND location OR Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity n . . . Pool of Activities 1 n Agent component Activity component Individual Agent December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Sample CBAF Implementation (RoboCup domain) Behavior Components kick catch dash move Decision Components spatial AND location OR Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity n . . . Pool of Activities 1 n Agent component Activity component Individual Agent Behavior components A behavior component must represent an agent’s action Each rule set in a plan must be mapped to a behavior component The framework must provide every possible atomic action for an agent in the particular domain as a behavior component December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Sample CBAF Implementation (RoboCup domain) Behavior Components kick catch dash move Decision Components spatial AND location OR Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity n . . . Pool of Activities 1 n Agent component Activity component Individual Agent Decision components Represents a rule used during plan generation for an agent The framework must facilitate the combining of various decision components to define new rules The framework must include all the decision components to accommodate the creation of any rule for a plan December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Sample CBAF Implementation (RoboCup domain) Behavior Components kick catch dash move Decision Components spatial AND location OR Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity n . . . Pool of Activities 1 n Agent component Activity component Individual Agent Activity component(s) Agent plans are generated as a concatenation of rules rooted by an Activity component Interface between an agent component and it’s plans Fully support the agent component capabilities. December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Sample CBAF Implementation (RoboCup domain) Behavior Components kick catch dash move Decision Components spatial AND location OR Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity n . . . Pool of Activities 1 n Agent component Activity component Individual Agent Agent component(s) Represents an individual agent in the MAS Knows how to locate and communicate with other agents in the system. Defines the scheduling mechanism for handling its plans. A user has to associate the agent component with plans to complete the agent design Different agent architectures are represented as separate agent components in the framework December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Challenges for CBAF Design Which components should we develop in the agent framework for a given domain? The components have to be functionally independent, but they also rely on each other for accomplishing their tasks and hence should be interactive and cohesive. How do we achieve that? How do we achieve component integration to create new components? How do we deploy the whole system with multiple agents? December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans RoboCup Domain Simulated soccer Based on a client/server architecture Provides an environment that is Complex Distributed Real-time Collaborative Adversarial December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Domain Analysis for CBAF Design (SoccerBeans) Which components should we develop in the agent framework for a given domain? All agents created as beans, have a scheduling mechanism that supports both BDI and Subsumption architectures Agent component: PlayerFoundation bean Only one architecture to be supported Activity component: Activity bean Decision criteria in different agent plans for various soccer teams Decision components: DBallDistance, DSelfPosition, DClosePlayers, etc. All agent actions Behavior components: BDash, BDribble, BShoot, BMove, BTurn, etc. December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Domain Analysis for CBAF Design (SoccerBeans) The components have to be functionally independent, but they also rely on each other for accomplishing their tasks and hence should be interactive and cohesive. How do we achieve that? Java’s Delegation Event Model for event handling Communication between adjacent components only ActivityEvent event Agent – Activity component communication FunctionalityEvent event Activity – Decision component communication Activity – Behavior component communication Decision – Behavior component communication December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Domain Analysis for CBAF Design (SoccerBeans) How do we achieve component integration to create new components? December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Domain Analysis for CBAF Design (SoccerBeans) How do we deploy the whole system with multiple agents? Sun’s Bean Development Kit (BDK) provides a runtime environment for deploying live beans Distributed programming issues handled by UDP sockets One JVM per agent December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

SoccerBeans – CBAF Implementation for RoboCup Domain Uses the Sun’s JavaBeans technology Agent component supports decision-making based on BDI and Subsumption architectures SoccerBeans components - Agent component PlayerFoundation bean Activity component Activity bean Decision components DBallDistance, DBallPosition, DPlayerPosition, etc. Behavior components BDash, BKick, BTurn, BMove, etc. December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Agent and Activity Components for SoccerBeans December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Decision Components for SoccerBeans December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Decision Components for SoccerBeans December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Behavior Components for SoccerBeans December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Behavior Components for SoccerBeans December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans A Sample Team December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Common Activities All 11 players share the Observe and StartPlay activities Observe incorporates the new sensory information from the server into the player’s world model StartPlay is for relocating the player to its starting position before kickoff and after a goal December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Goalie Goalie activities Observe (5) StartPlay (8) Catch (10) Pass (11) GoalKick (5) GotoPosition (9) Used 50 components to create the goalie December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Goalie Activities Catch activity for allowing the goalie to catch the ball Pass allows the goalie to move to a corner on the penalty box after catching the ball, or kick the ball away December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Goalie Activities GoalKick handles the “goal_kick_*” play mode GotoPosition positions the goalie to the most appropriate position, based on the ball’s current position December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Defenders Defender activities Observe (5) StartPlay (8) Pass (8) GotoPosition (25) Used 47 components to create each defender December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Defender Activities Defenders simply shoot the ball away towards the opponent’s half whenever possible through the Pass activity GotoPosition activity December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Defensive Midfielders Defensive midfielder activities Observe (5) StartPlay (8) Dribble (6) Pass (9) GotoPosition (21) Used 50 components to create each defensive midfielder December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Defensive Midfielder Activities Midfielders dribble the ball whenever possible Pass the ball if dribble is inappropriate December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Defensive Midfielder Activities GotoPosition activity December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Offensive Players Offensive player activities Observe (5) StartPlay (8) Dribble (7) Pass (8) GotoPosition (13,13,11,15,15) Used an average of 42 components to create each offensive player December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Offensive Player Activities Dribble activity Pass activity December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Offensive Midfielder Activities GotoPosition activity for offensive midfielders December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Offensive Central Midfielder Activities GotoPosition activity for offensive midfielders December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Forwards’ Activities GotoPosition activity for forwards December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Testing and Results Gamecocks beat Chikomalos 18-0! December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Improving SoccerBeans SoccerBeans has a lot of scope for improvement Decision beans concerning locations of other agents on the field Inter-agent communication – “say” messages Better dashing – use of “turn_neck” instead of “turn” wherever possible Better kicking – tighter dribbling, better computation of “kick_power” December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans Developing New Beans Beans are just special Java classes! Implement Serializable class Define get/set accessor methods for its properties All decision and behavior beans have similar structures Differ only in their instance variables and implementations of decide() or behave() methods Online references: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/javabeans/index.html http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Beans/ December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans

Developing New Beans in SoccerBeans Write the bean code MyBean.java and MyBeanBeanInfo.java files Save these files in the $PACKAGE_HOME/soccerbeans folder, $PACKAGE_HOME is where the soccerbeans package is extracted Compile the complete package with the bean From $PACKAGE_HOME, say javac soccerbeans/*.java regexp/*.java Update the manifest file Add the following to the soccerbeans.mft file Name: MyBean.class Java-Bean: True Update the soccerbeans package jar cfm soccerbeans.jar soccerbeans.mft soccerbeans/*.class regexp/*.class December 4, 2018 CSCE 782 – CBAF & SoccerBeans