Multiagent Coordination Techniques for Complex Environments: The Case of a Fleet of Combat Ships

The use of agent and multiagent techniques to assist humans in their daily routines has been increasing for many years, notably in command and control C2 systems. In this context, we propose using multiagent planning and coordination techniques for resources management in C2 systems. The particular problem we studied is the design of a decision-support for antiair warfare on combat ships. In this paper, we refer to the specific case of several combat ships defending against incoming threats and where coordination of their respective resources is a complex problem of capital importance. Efficient coordination mechanisms between the different combat ships are then important to avoid redundancy in engagements and inefficient defence caused by the conflicting actions. To this end, we present four different coordination mechanisms based on task sharing. Three of these mechanisms are communication-based: central coordination, contract Net coordination, and ~ Brown coordination, while the last one is a zone defence coordination and is based on conventions. Finally, we present the results obtained while simulating these various mechanisms