Researchers at the University of Southampton will present their work on the use of computerised agents for home energy management and disaster responses at TechWorld this week. A team led by Professor Nick Jennings and Dr Alex Rogers at the University’s ECS – Electronics and Computer Science has been invited to present a poster at Tech World (16-17 November) which focuses this year on Energy & Environment, Digital Connected World. The team’s poster: Human-Agent Collectives: From Foundations to Applications, focuses on the team’s work on the new science of human-agents collectives, basically how computerised agents can interact with humans. It is a contender for the TechWorld University Excellence competition prize, which will be announced on Thursday (17 November).
The poster is based on ORCHID, an ECS-led programme to develop the theory and practice of human-agent collectives (HACs), defined as human and software agents that work in partnership to achieve individual and collective goals. “Working with computerised agents presents a number of challenges,” said Professor Jennings. “One is looking at the balance between humans that decide everything and software that decides everything. Another is looking at how agents fulfil tasks and disband when they are complete and we are also looking at how agents can be encouraged to act in ways that generate socially desirable outcomes.” ORCHID is approaching these challenges by blending expertise in statistical information processing and multi-agent systems with human-agent interaction. The five-year project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) with significant funding from its industrial partners has applications in future energy systems, disaster management, and defence and security industries.
The project brings together over 60 researchers from a range of disciplines at the Universities of Southampton, Oxford and Nottingham, together with industrial partners at BAE systems, PRI Ltd and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR).