Demonstration of Rational Communicative Behavior in Coordinated Defense

Abstract

Introduction The primary goal of our demonstration is to show results we obtained on communication among artificial and human agents interacting in a simulated air defense domain. In the anti-air defense the agents, human or artificial, are coordinating their defense actions, in this case interception of threats, with other defense agents. The goal of defending agents is to minimize damages to their territory. To fulfill their mission, the agents need to coordinate and, sometimes, to communicate with other agents. However, since the communication bandwidth is usually limited in a battlefield environment, it is more valuable for a defending agent to be selective as to what messages should be sent to other agents. Endowing the agents with a decision-theoretic method to choose their own communicative behavior given a situation at hand frees our agents from depending on communication protocols, frequently advocated in other work. We feel that relying on protocols drawn up beforeha