An artificial immune system model for intelligent agents

This paper describes the human immune system and its functionalities from a computational viewpoint. The objective of this paper is to provide the bio logical basis for an artificial immune system. This paper will also serve t o illustrate how a biological system can be studied and how inferences can be drawn from its operation that can be exploited in intelligent agents. Fu nctionalities of the biological immune system (e.g., content addressable me mory, adaptation, etc.) are identified for use in intelligent agents. Speci fically, in this paper, an intelligent agent will be described for task all ocation in a heterogeneous computing environment. Initial implementation of the agents will be described along with preliminary results. This research is not intended to develop an explicit model of the human immune system, b ut to exploit some of its functionalities in designing agent-based parallel and distributed control systems. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.