Distributed Behavior-based Multi-agent System for Automatic Segmentation of Brain MR Images

A novel multi-agent image segmentation system for MR Images is proposed. The agents are behavior-based autonomous entities that are situated in the image as their environment. The agents have local knowledge and cooperate in an implicit and simple manner to achieve globally rational team behavior. Incremental design of agents and their simple interactions facilitate incorporation of expert knowledge and properties of the specific application in the agents' mind. The system has been applied to MRI brain scans for segmentation of three pairs of structures. The results are satisfactory in terms of both average performance and robustness. The system is also proved to be robust against initialization of the agents.