Ant-like agents for load balancing in telecommunications networks

Schoonderwoerd, Ruud; Holland, Owen; Bruten, Janet

doi:10.1145/267658.267718

Cited by 215 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…A more successful application of ACO to a dynamically changing problem has been to the problem of network routing. Schoonderwoerd et al [48,49] have developed an effective system called Ant Based Control (ABC) for adapting routing tables in circuit-switched networks based on the ACO framework. Similarly, Di Caro and Dorigo [23] have developed a system called AntNet in which artificial ants adapt the routing tables of packet-switched networks.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are many examples of effective, adaptive behavior in natural multi-agent systems (e.g., [29,34,36,54]), and computational analogies of these systems have served as inspiration for multi-agent optimization and control algorithms in a variety of domains and contexts (e.g., 3,5,24,48]). Bonabeau et al provide a comprehensive survey of adaptive multi-agent systems that have been inspired by social insect behavior [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wasp-like Agents for Distributed Factory Coordination

Cicirello

Smith

2004

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

117

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Abstract. Agent-based approaches to manufacturing scheduling and control have gained increasing attention in recent years. Such approaches are attractive because they offer increased robustness against the unpredictability of factory operations. But the specification of local coordination policies that give rise to efficient global performance and effectively adapt to changing circumstances remains an interesting challenge. In this paper, we present a new approach to this coordination problem, drawing on various aspects of a computational model of how wasp colonies coordinate individual activities and allocate tasks to meet the collective needs of the nest.We focus specifically on the problem of configuring parallel multi-purpose machines in a factory to best satisfy product demands over time. Wasp-like computational agents that we call routing wasps act as overall machine proxies. These agents use a model of wasp task allocation behavior, coupled with a model of wasp dominance hierarchy formation, to determine which new jobs should be accepted into the machine's queue. If you view our system from a market-oriented perspective, the policies that the routing wasps independently adapt for their respective machines can be likened to policies for deciding when to bid and when not to bid for arriving jobs.We benchmark the performance of our system on the real-world problem of assigning trucks to paint booths in a simulated vehicle paintshop. The objective of this problem is to minimize the number of paint color changes accrued by the system, assuming no a priori knowledge of the color sequence or color distribution of trucks arriving in the system. We demonstrate that our system outperforms the bidding mechanism originally implemented for the problem as well as another related adaptive bidding mechanism.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wasp-like Agents for Distributed Factory Coordination

Cicirello

Smith

2004

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems

117

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show abstract

“…Previous work has shown the potential success in routing for both packet and circuit switching networks (e.g. AntNet [16], ABC [17]). The idea from ABC algorithm could be used in WDM routing because this is circuit-switched routing.…”

Section: Ant-based Network Routingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ant-based survivable routing in dynamic WDM networks with shared backup paths

Ngo

Jiang

et al. 2006

J Supercomput

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Abstract. In this paper, we consider the problem of survivable routing in dynamic WDM networks with single link failure model. Our work mainly concerns in how to dynamically determine a protection cycle (i.e., two link-disjoint paths between a node pair) to establish a dependable lightpath with backup paths sharing. This problem is identified as NP-complete, thus a heuristic for finding near optimal solution with reasonable computation time is usually preferred. Inspired from the principle of ant colony optimization, we propose in this paper an ant-based mobile agents algorithm for this problem with improved blocking performance. To enable the new ant-based algorithm, we propose to use on each network node both a routing table that contains a set of feasible protection cycles between source destination nodes and also a pheromone table for mobile agents. By keeping a suitable number of mobile agents in a network to continually and proactively update the routing tables based on the current network congestion state, the routing solution of a connection request can be obtained with a reasonable computation time. Extensive simulation results upon the ns-2 network simulator and two typical network topologies show that our new algorithm can achieve a significantly lower blocking probability than the promising algorithm for dynamic lightpath protection proposed in [11] with a comparable computation complexity.

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“…Several researchers have attempted to use the notion of ant pheromones for network-routing mechanisms [2,11]. Our framework allows moving agents to leave themselves on their trails and to become automatically volatilized after their life-spans are over.…”

Section: Ants-based Routing Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bio-inspired Organization for Multi-agents on Distributed Systems

Satoh

2006

Biologically Inspired Approaches to Advanced Information Technology

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Abstract. This paper presents a middleware system for multi-agents on a distributed system as a general test-bed for bio-inspired approaches. The middleware is unique to other approaches, including distributed object systems, because it can maintain and migrate a dynamic federation of multiple agents on different computers. It enables each agent to explicitly define its own deployment policy as a relocation between the agent and another agent. This paper describes a prototype implementation of the middleware built on a Java-based mobile agent system and its practical applications that illustrates the utility and effectiveness of the approach in real distributed systems.

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Ant-like agents for load balancing in telecommunications networks

Cited by 215 publications

References 12 publications

Wasp-like Agents for Distributed Factory Coordination

Wasp-like Agents for Distributed Factory Coordination

Ant-based survivable routing in dynamic WDM networks with shared backup paths

Bio-inspired Organization for Multi-agents on Distributed Systems

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