Overview

The RMIT Multi-Agent Contest Team (RACT) is formed by students and staff interested in developing a multi-agent system for playing the International Multi-Agent Contest game. This is an international competition involving many agent research groups around the world and aiming to stimulate research in the area of multi-agent programming by (1) identifying key problems; and (2) collecting suitable benchmarks that can serve as milestones for testing agent-oriented programming languages, platforms and tools. it is also expected that participating at the contest helps to debug a system and to identify weak parts in it. The contest happens once a year (since 2005) and is usually part of international scientific events like ProMAS (within AAMAS) or CLIMA workshops.

In general, the contest consists of applying (or developing from scratch) a multi-agent system to solve a cooperative task in a highly dynamic environment. Agents need to work with their team-mates and act efficiently in the context of incomplete information, failing actions, noisy sensors, violent opponents, and other typical features of complex dynamic worlds. The performance of a particular system will be determined in a series of games where the systems compete against each other.

At the moment, there are two different game scenarios available:

1. Gold mining game:
   

   "The rumor has it that in 2006 the first expeditions of prospectors set out for the unexplored deep forests in inner western Carpathians and shortly after their return some of those miners became major players on the German stock exchange. This started a golden rush in the area and large teams of well equipped miners and prospectors are trying to make their way to the mountains and collect as much gold as possible.
   
   Teams of gold miners find themselves exploring the same area, avoiding trees and bushes and competing for the gold nuggets spread around the woods. The gold miners of each team coordinate their actions in order to collect as much gold as they can and to deliver it to the trading agent located in a depot where the gold is safely stored. However, this adventure is also quite dangerous as meeting a member of a different team often results in a violence."

   This is the game between Team spain vs. Team brazil in the 2006 official tournament:

2. Cow herdering:
   

   "An unknown species of cattle was recently discovered in the unexplored flatlands of Lemuria. The cows have some nice features: their carbondioxyde- and ethane-output is extremely low compared to the usual cattle and their beef and milk are of supreme quality and taste. These facts definitely caught the attention of the beef- and milk-industries. The government decided to allow the cows to be captured and bred by everyone who is interested and has the capabilities. Several well-known companies decided to send in their personnel to the fields to catch as many of them as possible. This led to an unprecedented rush for cows. To maximize their success the companies replaced their traditional cowboys by artificial herders. In this year’s agent contest the participants have to compete in an environment for cows.
   
   Each team controls a set of herders in order to direct the cows into their own corral. The team with the most cows in the corral at the end wins the match."

   This is a game between Team Jadex vs Team JIAC from the 2008 official tournament:

If you are interested or have questions please contact Sebastian Sardina by email to arrange a meeting.