A Data-Oriented Coordination Language for Distributed Transportation Applications

Data-oriented coordination languages rely on a shared space in which agents add, read and retrieve data. They are intuitively well suited for distributed transportation applications, where different actors evolve in a highly dynamic and very constrained environment. However, existing coordination languages can hardly be used for transportation applications, because they cannot express agents complex interaction needs. Indeed; in transportation applications, the interaction needs of the agents are driven by their current context: and by ambient conditions, expressed in the form of constraints on the values taken by variables. In this paper, we propose LAMS, a new data-oriented coordination language for designing and implementing distributed transportation applications, and we illustrate our proposal with two examples: a traveler information system and a demand-responsive transport system. LACIOS allows agents to express complex interaction needs, including agents states, system objects values, operators and functions, and is grounded on a model where the multi-agent system design is centered on the environment.