Enabling scalable and fault-tolerant multi-agent systems by utilizing cloud-native computing

Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, vol. 35

Abstract

Abstract Multi-agent systems (MAS) represent a distributed computing paradigm well suited to tackle today’s challenges in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT). Both share many similarities such as the interconnection of distributed devices and their cooperation. The combination of MAS and IoT would allow the transfer of the experience gained in MAS research to the broader range of IoT applications. The key enabler for utilizing MAS in the IoT is the ability to build large-scale and fault-tolerant MASs since IoT concepts comprise possibly thousands or even millions of devices. However, well known multi-agent platforms (MAP), e. g., Java Agent DE-velopment Framework (JADE), are not able to deal with these challenges. To this aim, we present a cloud-native Multi-Agent Platform (cloneMAP) as a modern MAP based on cloud-computing techniques to enable scalability and fault-tolerance. A microservice architecture is used to implement it in a distributed way utilizing the open-source container orchestration system Kubernetes. Thereby, bottlenecks and single-points of failure are conceptually avoided. A comparison with JADE via relevant performance metrics indicates the massively improved scalability. Furthermore, the implementation of a large-scale use case verifies cloneMAP’s suitability for IoT applications. This leads to the conclusion that cloneMAP extends the range of possible MAS applications and enables the integration with IoT concepts.

Authors 3

1. Stefan Dähling corresponding Aachen Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems E.ON Energy Research Center

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Mathieustraße 10, 52074, Aachen, Germany

2. Lukas Razik

   Forschungszentrum Jülich

   Affiliation as printed

   Energy Systems Engineering (IEK-10), Jülich Research Centre, Jülich, Germany

3. Antonello Monti Aachen Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems E.ON Energy Research Center

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Mathieustraße 10, 52074, Aachen, Germany