Will intelligent assets take off? Towards self-serving aircrafts

Abstract

In this article we present the self-serving-asset, developed as part of a research project at the Boeing Company and the University of Cambridge. The self-serving asset is self-aware, and has the goal to maximise its life in service by contacting, selecting and procuring service providers autonomously. The result is an open, consistent service chain where complex database transactions are eliminated, and an emergent, yet rather self-capable system starts to materialise. Among various supporting technology multi-agent systems provide the backbone for the “intelligence” characteristic required from the self-serving asset. Intelligent asset agents monitor assets, contact suppliers, use multi-criteria decision making to select among proposals, and handle competition. In this paper we aim to outline the self-serving asset concept, describe the multi-agent platform designed to support the asset, and present experimental results on the preliminary agent architecture in terms of decision optimality, scalability and stability.