Definition of Agent Goals by Means of Missions

Agent based simulation is often the preferred method utilized to investigate properties of complex systems. Vital part of definition of agent based models is the definition of goals agents have to fulfil. Declarative way of specifying these goals is easy to implement, however such approach limits the reusability of defined goals. The paper proposes agent missions, which are defined in the form of a graph that is interpreted during simulation run. Proposed approach provides universal means to define agent goals in various types of models and allows easy definition of parallelization and synchronization of defined goals. Basic algorithms of mission interpreter, which can be incorporated into managing agent's logic, are presented as well. We show that missions can be defined independently from agent's reasoning engine and agent relationship structure, which further extends the applicability of proposed approach.