An Experimental Evaluation of Domain-Independent Fault Handling Services in Open Multi-Agent Systems

A critical challenge to creating effective open multi-agent systems is allowing them to operate effectively in the face of potential failures. In this paper we present an experimental evaluation of a set of domain-independent services designed to handle the failure modes ("exceptions") that can occur in such environments, applied to the wellknown "Contract Net" multi-agent system coordination protocol. We show that these services can produce substantially more effective fault handling behavior than standard existing techniques, while allowing simpler agent implementations.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: ICMAS
• Authors: Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Mark Klein
• Keywords: Fault Handling Behavior, ICMAS 2000, Intelligent Agents, Multi-agent System, Open Multi-agent Systems