MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS IN INTELLIGENT PERVASIVE SPACES

This paper describes an agent model based on social psychology and also on the concept of organisational semiotics information fields to provide a conceptual infrastructure for designing multi-agent systems in intelligent pervasive spaces. Since 'information' is an ill-defined word we prefer to adopt the semiotics framework, which uses the 'sign' as the elementary concept. Information as a composition of signs is then analyzed at different levels, including syntax, semantics, pragmatics and the social level. Based on different properties of signs, found at different semiotic levels, we adopt the EDA agent model (an acronym for its three component modules: Epistemic-Deontic-Axiological). Intelligent pervasive spaces are ICT-enhanced physical and social spaces, differing from traditional pervasive computing on the focus, which in pervasive spaces is essentially social instead of technological (Liu et al., 2010). Agents are often described in terms of their internal structure, emphasizing their autonomy even in social settings involving communication and coordination. In this paper we suggest that agents can be seen both as individual and social entities, simultaneously. The norm-based multi-agent social architecture defined in this paper is flexible enough to accommodate changes in social structure, including changes in role specification, and representation of inter-subjective social objects.