Part of the 2009 Spring Simulation Multiconference
San Diego, California, USA
March 22-27, 2009
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/SCS-TM/ADS-2009.htm
Manuscript Submission: October 30, 2008.
INTRODUCTION
Currently, there exist many agent conferences, as well as agent-based (social) simulation conferences. However, there are not many simulation conferences where agent and simulation technology are together a central theme. It is therefore that the ADS symposium fills a gap in the agent community as well as the simulation community.
The purpose of the ADS symposium is to facilitate dissemination of the most recent advancements in the theory, methodology, application, and toolkits of agent-directed simulation. Agent-directed simulation is comprehensive in the integration of agent and simulation technology, by including models that use
agents to develop domain-specific simulations (this is often referred to as agent-based simulation), and by also including the use of agent technology to develop simulation techniques and toolkits that are subsequently applied, either with or without agents. Hence, agent-directed simulation consists of three distinct, yet related areas that can be grouped under two categories as follows:
Simulation for Agents (agent simulation): simulation of agent systems in engineering, human and social dynamics, military applications etc.
Agents for Simulation: agent-supported simulation deals with the use of agents as a support facility to enable computer assistance in problem solving or enhancing cognitive capabilities; agent-based simulation focuses on the use
of agents for the generation of model behavior in a simulation study.
Through the theme of agent-directed simulation, the symposium will bring together agent technologies, tools, toolkits, platforms, languages, methodologies, and applications in a pragmatic manner. In this symposium, established researchers, educators, and students are encouraged to come together and discuss the benefits of agent technology in their use and
application for simulation. It is a way for people to discuss why and how they have used agent technology in their simulations, and describe the benefit of having done so.
The theme of ADS‘09 is based on the observation of the following premises.
The growth of new advanced distributed computing standards along with the rapid rise of e-commerce are providing a new context that acts as a critical driver for the development of next generation systems. These standards revolve around service-oriented technologies, pervasive computing, web-services, Grid, autonomic computing, ambient intelligence etc. The supporting
role that intelligent agents play in the development of such systems is becoming pervasive, and simulation plays a critical role in the analysis and design of such systems.
The use of emergent agent technologies at the organization, interaction (e.g., coordination, negotiation, communication) and agent levels (i.e. reasoning, autonomy) are expected to advance the state of the art in various application domains. However, modeling and testing complex agent systems that are based on such technologies is difficult. Using agent-supported simulation
techniques for testing complex agent systems is up and coming field.
To facilitate bridging the gap between research and application, there is a need for tools, agent programming languages, and methodologies to analyze, design, and implement complex, non-trivial agent-based simulations. Existing agent-based simulation tools are still not mature enough to enable developing
agents with varying degrees cognitive and reasoning capabilities.
ADS 2009 will provide a leading forum to bring together researchers and practitioners from diverse simulation societies within computer science, social sciences, engineering, business, education, human factors, and systems engineering. The involvement of various agent-directed simulation groups will
enable the cross-fertilization of ideas and development of new perspectives by fostering novel advanced solutions, as well as enabling technologies for agent-directed simulation.