GOSU: computing GOal SUpport with commitments in multiagent systems

Goal-based agent architectures have been one of the most effective architectures for designing agents. In such architectures, the state of the agent as well as its goal set are represented explicitly. The agent then uses its set of actions to reach the goals in its goal set. However, in multiagent systems, most of the time, an agent cannot reach a goal only using its own actions but needs other agents to act as well. Commitments have been successfully used to regulate those interactions between agents. This paper proposes a framework and an environment for agents to manage the relations between their commitments and goals. More specifically, we provide an algorithm called GOSU to compute if a given set of commitments can be used to achieve a particular goal. We describe how GOSU can be implemented using the Reactive Event Calculus and demonstrate its capabilities over a case study.