Multi-Agent Programming Contest (in association with ProMAS 2007)

[Peter Novak]

[apologies for multiple copies]

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		    Multi-Agent Programming Contest
			  in association with
			      ProMAS 2007

			     May 14/15 2007
			    Honolulu, Hawaii
	    http://cig.in.tu-clausthal.de/AgentContest2007/

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* Aims and Scope:
This competition is an attempt to stimulate research in the area of
multi-agent programming by

   1- identifying key problems and
   2- collecting suitable benchmarks

that can serve as milestones for testing agent-oriented programming
languages, platforms and tools. We also expect that participating at the
contest helps to debug a system and to identify weak parts in it.

The performance of a particular system  will be determined in a series
of games where the systems compete against each other.  While winning
the competition is not the main point, we hope it will shed light on the
applicability of certain frameworks to particular domains.

* History
This is the third such contest. The first two were organized within the
CLIMA conference series.

* Scenario description
This year, the contest is organised as part of the ProMAS workshop (a
workshop organized within AAMAS 07). It consists of applying (or
developing from scratch) a multi-agent system to solve a cooperative
task in a dynamically changing environment. The environment of the
multi-agent system is a grid-like world where agents can move from one
cell to a neighbouring cell if there is no agent or obstacle already in
that cell. In this environment, gold can appear in the cells.
Participating agent teams explore the environment, avoid obstacles and
compete with another agent team for the gold in the environment.

We encourage submissions that specify and design a multi-agent system in
terms of high-level concepts such as goals, beliefs, plans, roles,
communication, coordination, negotiation, and dialogue in order to
generate an efficient and effective solution for the above mentioned
application. Moreover, the use of agent-oriented programming languages,
platforms, tools, and techniques in the implementations of multi-agent
system is appreciated.

* Participation requirements:
The participation in this contest consists of two parts:

1- Submission of the description of analysis, design and implementation
of a multi-agent system for the above application. Existing multi-agent
system methodologies such as Gaia, Prometheus or Tropos can be used to
describe the system. For the description of the implementation, it
should be explained how the design is implemented. This can be done by
explaining, for example, which programming language, platform, tools,
and techniques are used to implement the multi-agent system. The maximum
length of this description is 5 pages according to the LNCS format.

2- Participation in the contest tournament by means of an (executable)
implementation of a multi-agent system. The agents from each
participating systems (agent teams) will be executed locally (on the
participant's hardware) while the simulated environment, in which all
agents from competing teams perform actions, is run on the remote
contest simulation server. Interaction/communication between agents from
one team should be managed locally, but the interaction between
individual agents and their environment (run on the simulation server)
will be via Internet.  Participating agents connect to the simulation
server that provides the information about the environment. Each agent
from each team should connect and communicate to the simulation server
using one TCP connection.

Further technical details on how to participate in this contest can be
found on the contest webpage

	    http://cig.in.tu-clausthal.de/AgentContest2007/

The source code together with instructions on how to install it
including precise instructions on software and hardware requirements
should be submitted just before the competition starts.

* How To Submit:
Please announce your intention to attend the contest by subscribing to
the mailing list (details on the home page)  **now**.

Please submit a 5 page description of your solution to Mehdi Dastani
(mehdi at cs.uu.nl). Several days before the start of the competition, the
contest organisers will contact participants via e-mail with details on
time and Internet coordinates (IP addresses/ports) of the simulation
server.

* Important Dates:
	Submission of the description:    February 19, 2007
	Notification:                     March 5, 2007
	Camera-Ready of the description:  March 19, 2007
	Competition:                      TBA (in April)
	Winner announcement:              May 14/15, 2007

* Winning Criteria:
The winner of the contest will be the best performing team with the
highest number of points from the tournament. The original, innovative,
and effective application of agent-oriented programming languages,
platforms, tools, and techniques for the implementation of multi-agent
systems will influence the final decision as well.