Excellence in Research: Actor-Based Modeling and Control of Distributed Networked Autonomous Systems with Fault-Tolerant Protocol Settings

卓越研究：具有容错协议设置的分布式网络自治系统的基于参与者的建模和控制

• 批准号: 2053412
• 负责人: Getachew Befekadu
• 金额: $ 32.12万
• 依托单位: Morgan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2053412&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Excellence; Research; Actor; Based; Modeling

A common vision of the future is the one where our surrounding environments are replete with smart distributed autonomous agents whose normal functioning significantly relies on tight integration of complex dynamic environments, making decisions and autonomously sensing their environments, and by doing so realizing a set of complex and often changing tasks for which these distributed autonomous agents are designed or expected to operate. The focus of this proposal is to present design and functionality analysis for autonomous agent-based systems, where agents dynamically process information received from their connected neighbors and make decisions or statistical inferences about their networked connections for reliable exchange or aggregation information across the whole distributed systems. The findings from this project will have positive impacts on the current development and deployment of distributed autonomous agents, sensor networks and ubiquitous computing systems, and their interactions that need high confidence and fault-tolerant protocol settings. The project will also provide many opportunities and educational resources to STEM students that broaden their participation in engineering through algorithm development, testbed experimentation, performance evaluation and other project related activities.This project aims at addressing fundamental challenges that arise from attempting to integrate a data-driven computational paradigm in settings, where distributed networked autonomous agents seek making strategic-decisions, inferences and/or establishing reliable network connections in complex uncertain environments. The basic idea is to expand efforts in modeling the structural behaviors of distributed autonomous agent-based systems, aimed at facilitating transmission of necessary information for decision-making capabilities or inferences based on fault-tolerant protocol settings. The proposed work provides a framework for addressing the following questions: (i) how should autonomous agents dynamically revise their local connections based on the messaging patterns they receive from neighboring agents over a certain duration of time, that support global network formation with desirable structural properties? (ii) how is the resulting network formation process sensitive to noises in the communication channels or jamming activities due to adversaries? (iii) under what conditions may the network formation process never reach steady-state or how any adjustments in the messaging patterns or protocol settings can help address such issues? Overall, the proposed framework along with its theoretical algorithms and software tools that are being developed will facilitate the transition to real-world application problems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

未来的一个共同愿景是，我们的周围环境充满了智能分布式自主代理，其正常功能很大程度上依赖于复杂动态环境的紧密集成，做出决策并自主感知环境，并通过这样做实现一组复杂且经常变化的任务，这些分布式自主代理被设计或预期运行。该提案的重点是提出基于自主代理的系统的设计和功能分析，其中代理动态处理从其连接的邻居接收的信息，并对其网络连接做出决策或统计推断，以便在整个分布式系统中可靠地交换或聚合信息。该项目的研究结果将对当前分布式自治代理、传感器网络和普适计算系统的开发和部署，以及它们需要高置信度和容错协议设置的交互产生积极影响。该项目还将为 STEM 学生提供许多机会和教育资源，通过算法开发、测试台实验、性能评估和其他项目相关活动扩大他们对工程的参与。该项目旨在解决因尝试在环境中集成数据驱动的计算范式而产生的基本挑战，其中分布式网络自主代理寻求在复杂的不确定性中做出战略决策、推理和/或建立可靠的网络连接 环境。基本思想是扩大对基于分布式自治代理的系统的结构行为建模的努力，旨在促进基于容错协议设置的决策能力或推理所需信息的传输。拟议的工作提供了一个解决以下问题的框架：（i）自主代理应如何根据在一定时间内从相邻代理收到的消息传递模式动态修改其本地连接，以支持具有所需结构属性的全球网络形成？ (ii) 由此产生的网络形成过程对通信信道中的噪声或对手造成的干扰活动如何敏感？ (iii) 在什么条件下网络形成过程可能永远无法达到稳定状态，或者消息传递模式或协议设置的任何调整如何有助于解决此类问题？总体而言，所提出的框架及其正在开发的理论算法和软件工具将有助于向现实世界的应用问题过渡。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。