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A simulator that will lead to the creation of more effective computerised agents in disaster scenarios has been made available by Southampton University, UK.
Nick Jennings at the university’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) has officially released ECSKernel, a test bed for multi-agent systems. “This work highlights the importance of using advanced computer techniques for real world problems such as disaster response,” said Jennings. [We] hope that many other groups around the world will use and build upon the system we have developed.”
The simulator was designed as part of ALADDIN (Autonomous Learning Agents for Decentralised Data), a five-year project funded by the aerospace company BAE Systems and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to research agent-based technologies to work in emergency situations.
It simulates the events that happen during disaster rescue scenarios and allows users to benchmark and evaluate the effectiveness of their agent-based technologies in these environments.
“ECSKernel provides a realistic environment within which several teams of agents are faced with a number of disaster rescue tasks such as extinguishing fires and saving civilians trapped in buildings,” said Sarvapali Ramchurn from the ECS team.
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