Klaus Dorer

An adaptive solution to dynamic transport optimization

This paper describes LS/ATN, Living Systems®Adaptive Transportation Networks, an agent-based solution we have developed to solve transportation problems in the charter business logistics. LS/ATN provides automatic optimization and execution capabilities that extend the existing planning systems accordingly. To describe our solution and analyse its performance, we report on a real case scenario in which transportation requests of a big logistics provider were optimized. Besides describing the agent approach and the LS/ATN features we stress the necessity to integrate such agent system into a real-world IT architecture. Finally, we show that our adaptive solution produces significantly better results in real case scenarios than what achieved with manual optimization of professional dispatchers.

Agents in industry: the best from the AAMAS 2005 industry track

Agent technology provides industrial-applications developers with new abstractions for distributed-system development, new methodological tools, and a set of algorithms for creating autonomous, collaborative systems. Over the past few years, a number of industrial applications have deployed agents. However, a substantial gap still exists between the cutting-edge research carried out mainly in university laboratories and research institutes and the domain-specific industrial applications that commercial organizations develop. This article gives some indication of agent technologys readiness for commercial deployment, based primarily on the presentations and discussions at the inaugural Industry Track of AAMAS 2005 - the Fourth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.

Agent-oriented software engineering for successful TAC participation

In this paper we describe our approach for an efficient design and implementation of multi-agent systems using agent oriented methodologies and tools. We demonstrate the strength of this approach taking the example of the TAC domain. The trading agent competition (TAC) is a challenging e-marketplace domain for autonomous auction agents. The development process turned out to be very effective with respect to time and success and with the living agents team finishing as the highest scoring team.

LS/ATN: Reporting on a Successful Agent-Based Solution for Transport Logistics Optimization

A considerable volume of research exists concerning the domain of automatic planning and scheduling, hut many real-world scheduling problems, and especially that of transportation logistics, remain difficult to solve. In particular, this domain demands schedule-solving for every vehicle in a transportation fleet where pick-up and delivery of customer orders is distributed across multiple geographic locations, while satisfying time-window constraints on pickup and delivery per location. This paper presents a successful commercial-grade solution to this problem called living systems adaptive transportation networks (LS/ATN), which has been proven through real-world deployment to reduce transportation costs through the optimization of route solving for both small and large fleets. LS/ATN is a novel agent-based resource management and decision system designed to address this highly dynamic and complex domain in commercial settings. We show how LS/ATN employs agent cooperation algorithms to derive truck schedules that optimize the use of available resources leading to significant cost savings. The solution is designed to support, rather than replace, the day-to-day activities of human dispatchers

The magmaFreiburg Soccer Team

The main interest of our research concerns motivation action control and goal management of agents (magma). Action Control of the magmaFreiburg team is based on extended behavior networks, which add situation-dependent motivational influences to the agent, extend original behavior networks to exploit information from continuous domains and allow concurrent execution of behaviors. Advantages of the original networks, such as reactivity, planning capabilities, consideration of multiple goals and its cheap calculations are maintained.

Modeling human decision making using extended behavior networks

In their famous work on prospect theory Kahneman and Tversky have presented a couple of examples where human decision making deviates from rational decision making as defined by decision theory. This paper describes the use of extended behavior networks to model human decision making in the sense of prospect theory. We show that the experimental findings of non-rational decision making described by Kahneman and Tversky can be reproduced using a slight variation of extended behavior networks.

Dynamic Dispatching and Transport Optimization Real-World Experience with Perspectives on Pervasive Technology Integration

This paper discusses a technological solution to real-time road transportation optimization using a commercial multi-agent based system, LS/ATN, which has been proven through real-world deployment to reduce transportation costs for both small and large fleets in the full and part load business. Subsequent to describing the real-time optimization approach, we discuss how the platform is currently evolving to accept live data from vehicles in the fleet in order to improve optimization accuracy. A selection of the predominant pervasive technologies available today for enhancing intelligent route optimization is described.

An Adaptive Approach to Dynamic Transport Optimization

In this paper, we present the agent-based approach we have developed to solve dynamic multi-vehicle pickup and delivery problems with soft time windows. While many of the existing research frameworks have been focusing on reaching near-optimal solutions, the central theme of our work is the optimization of real-world sized problems in near real time. In order to describe our approach and analyse its performance, we introduce a real case scenario in which a logistics company must dynamically optimize a set of transportation requests. The aim is to show how our adaptive solution produces significantly better results than can be achieved with manual optimization of professional dispatchers.

On the Progress of Soccer Simulation Leagues

Soccer simulation league is one of the founding leagues of RoboCup. In this paper we discuss the past, present and planned future achievements and changes. Also we summarize the connections and inter-league achievements of this league and provide an overview of the community contributions that made this league successful.

Improved Agents of the magmaFreiburg2000 Team

The magmaFreiburg2000 team, as its predecessor, is based on Extended Behavior Networks [4]. This paper focuses on the improvements made compared to the magmaFreiburg1999 team of Stockholm. The main domain-independent improvements have been made by introducing concurrent behavior selection into the Extended Behavior Networks framework [3]. Domain-dependent improvements have mainly been made on server synchronization and game strategy.