Role-based shared mental models

Roles have been used to form multi-agent theories to guide the construction of multi-agent architectures and systems. While the BDI (Believe, Desire and Intention) model emphasizes practical reasoning based on beliefs, desires and intentions, role-based multi-agent systems stress the concept of organization and thereby cooperation. In this paper, we present RoB-SMM, a role-based shared mental model. An important characteristic of our notion of role is that it includes the specific operations that an agent filling the role must perform in a specific setting as well as their ordering constraints. Taking this view on the definition of role has enabled us to present the responsibility of roles and construct individual agent's shared mental model. We also develop formal reasoning on the shared mental model in order to proactively provide help to other agents. Finally, we present two experiments that explore plan reusability of RoB-SMM and evaluate its efficiency in supporting teamwork.