Agent-based schedule validation and verification

An agent architecture called ABPEM (Agent-Based Planning, Execution and Monitoring) is presented that utilizes a dynamically reconfigurable data-flow network for planning, execution and monitoring on large-scale multi-information-source systems. This approach is applicable to a broad range of systems, such as transportation, logistics, manufacturing and information-gathering systems, especially where the domain is characterized by dynamic environments that change during the course of execution. It is currently being applied to the problem of validating and verifying airlift cargo schedules. Given an airlift cargo mission schedule, relevant data is identified and collected and then used to (a) validate the future scheduled missions, and (b) verify the completion of executing missions (or reporting unexpected results).