Resource Management in Socio-Technical Systems: A Multi-Agent Coordination Framework

Resource management in complex socio-technical systems is a central and crucial task. The many diverse components involved together with various constraints such as real-time conditions make it impossible to devise exact optimal solutions. In this article, we present an approach to the resource management problem based on the multiagent paradigm to be applied in the context of a shipboard command and control (C2) system. A general architecture for multiagent planning and scheduling for achieving a common shared goal together with a real-time simulation environment as well as a simulation test-bed using the agent teamwork approach is described.