Dynamic adaptive autonomy in multiagent systems: Representation and justification

Autonomy is an often cited but rarely agreed upon agent characteristic. Alt hough no definition of agent autonomy is universally accepted, the concept of adaptive autonomy promises increasingly flexible and robust agent-based systems. In general, adaptive autonomy gives agents the ability to seek hel p for problems or take initiative when otherwise they would be constrained by their design to follow some fixed procedures or rules for interacting wi th other agents. In order to access these benefits, this article provides a core definition and representation of agent autonomy designed to support t he implementation of adaptive agent autonomy. This definition identifies "d ecision-making control" governing the determination of agent goals and task s as the key dimension of agent autonomy. In order to gain run-time flexibi lity and any associated performance improvements, agents must be able to dy namically adapt their autonomy during system operation. This article justif ies the implementation of dynamic adaptive autonomy through a series of exp eriments showing that a multiagent system operating under dynamic adaptive autonomy performs better than a multiagent system operating under fixed aut onomy for the same changing run-time conditions.