Consistency Maintenance in Autonomous Agent Representations

Abstract

Multi-representation models are an attractive design solution for layered autonomous agent architectures in terms of man aging complexity of internal representations and separation of design concerns. However, the representations maintained by the multiple layers can become inconsistent with one another due to the nature of the layers' concerns and capabilities. Consistency maintenance in multi-representation models is an emerging concern in many domains, such as military simulations. We present an approach to consistency maintenance in multi-tier agent architectures. We draw on experience and techniques from the multi-representation modeling community. The benefit of this approach for autonomous agent designers is a conceptual framework through which to organize systems that must deal with temporal and mapping inconsistencies.