Coordination in Multiagent-Based University Architecture
Thiri Haymar Kyaw and Ni Lar Thein
University of Computer Studies, Yangon.
Hlaing Township, Yangon, Myanmar.
ABSTRACT
We present a token-based coordination approach in
hierarchical composite multiagent architecture. There are
many heterogeneous composite agents and two types of
coordinator agents. A composite agent is composed of
multiple individual agents. When any agent has a task or
request or information, it creates a token and sends to
Intelligent Coordinator agent (ICo) through Assistant
Coordinator agent (ACo). Each composite agent has one ACo
that is responsible for selecting correct individual agent,
passing the token to addressed agent within the same
composite agent and communicating with ICo. ICo provides
efficient coordination between composite agents for
information sharing and task allocation, etc. Coordinator
agents use Matching Inference Engine (MIE) to route the
tokens to correct receiver agents efficiently and directly.
Token passing algorithms called coordinator algorithms for
ICo and ACo have been developed in this paper. We described
a multiagent-based university system as a proof of concept
application. The proposed approach gives efficient
coordination between automated entities in university with
very little communication. We show the results comparing
with simple point-to-point multiagent architecture.
Keywords: Multiagent System, Token-based Coordination,
Composite Agents and Intelligent Coordinator.
1. INTRODUCTION
Coordination is a complex and open problem for large
multiagent systems and especially if the agents represent the
organizational entities due to the requirements of inter and
intra agent communication with coperative, efficient and
effective coordinated behavior. Automated coordination is still
a very active research area because it can decrease operational
cost, risk, time and human activities while increasing
efficiency, flexibility and cooperation performance.
Coordination is the process of managing the possible
interaction between activities and process. Coordination
between multiple agents requires to perform several various
functions including messages passing, tasks allocation,
resources sharing, and negotiation to reach the common goal.
There are many widely used coordination approaches such as
auction based coordination, token-based coordination and
hybrid approach, etc. Some approaches have extra routings
that tokens may be passed to unrelated agents or unnecessary
bids. The proposed approach uses token-based hierarchical
coordination because hierarchical coordination gives the best
results for large-scale systems and token-based approach finds
the reasonable solution rather than searching for the optimal.
New coordination algorithms are developed to determine the
tokens are passed to where. In previous, token-based
algorithms use the local models for token movement and a
token is routed to all agents within the teams. In this approach,
coordinator agents provide token movement decisions by
using token passing algorithms called coordinator algorithms.
In this paper, we show a multiagent architecture for a
university and apply the coordination approach for informing
and task allocation between agents. This concept offers a
range of coordinated services, tasks allocation and access to
resources through the coordinator agents and supports on the
fundamental computerized subsystems for the university’s
administrative, teaching, library and student affairs.
Multiagent system approach has been widely used in the
development of large and complex systems. Multiagent
approach is appropriate for university architecture while
coordinating and cooperating between agents effectively
support for the university system. In our multiagent
architecture, each subsystem is constructed as a composite
agent. Intelligent Coordinator agent (ICo) communicates and
coordinates among composite agents. A composite agent is
composed of several individual agents. If any agent appears a
new task or information or request, it creates a token and
sends to ICo through the Assistant Coordinator agent (ACo).
ACo has responsibilities of passing the token to correct
destination agent within the same composite agent and uses
coordinator algorithm. ICo determines when and where to pass
the token directly using its coordinator algorithm with the help
of Matching Inference Engine (MIE). MIE is a simple rule
based reasoning engine. The main purpose of this approach is
to provide efficient and effective coordination among large
agent teams with very little communication.
In the rests of the paper, we review the previous approaches
related to multiagent coordination in section 2. We discuss the
proposed hierarchical composite multiagent architecture and
university architecture in section 3. Token-based coordination
with proposed coordinator algorithms for ICo and ACo is
described in section 4. We present how to work coordination
in the prototype university system in section 5 and show the
emprical results in section 6. Finally, in section 7, we conclude
the paper with discussion and our future work.
2. RELATED WORKS
Efficient and effective coordination between large agent teams
promises for performing complex and distributed tasks
successfully. P. Scerri et al. have developed an integrated
token based algorithm for scalable coordination [15], [17],
[18], [19]. They used tokens to encapsulate anything that
needs to be shared by the team, including information, tasks,
and resources. The tokens are efficiently routed with
decentralized manner through the team via the use of local
decision model that determines what to do with the tokens in
order to maximize expected utility. The token movement
model they used is a Partially Observable Markov Decision
Process (POMDP) because agents in a large team may not
know the states of their teammates or that of the environment.
is responsible for selecting appropriate agents to pass the
token and communicating within CAi. Intelligent Coordinator
agent (ICo) is responsible for token movement decisions
between composite agents for message informing, task
allocation, negotiation, requesting and resource allocation.

In auction based called market-based approach [20], one agent ICo

acts as auctioneer and both tasks and resources are treated as token messages
token messages
merchandise. Agents bid for either single items or
token messages
combinatorial sets of items in order to maximize their own
utilities. The auctioneer maximizes its utility by selling their ACo ACo
merchandise. It develops a complete knowledge of how agents ACo

will use a task or resource if located because the auctioneer’s

A1 A1 … A2
position is centralized. When early determination was A2 … A3 A1 A3
… A2 …
infeasible, agents are allowed to bid for resources after tasks
have been allocated. J. M. Vidal [7] presented a multiagent
coordination approach using combinatorial auctions for the Fig.1. Coordination in Hierarchical Composite Multiagent
reason of other previous approaches that require all agents to Architecture.
send their bids to a centralized auctioneer. Every agent
performs the task of the auctioneer. All bids are broadcast and 3.1 Multiagent University Architecture
when an agent receives a bid from another agent it updates the
set of best bids and determines if the new bid is better than the Multiagent system approach is effective for tackling the
current winning bid. It guaranteed to find the bid which management of the entire university system. The abstract
maximizes the agent’s utility given the outstanding best bids. structure of multiagent university architecture is shown in Fig
M. Ham and G. Agha [10] presented the market-based 2.
mechanisms for dynamic coordinated task assignment in large
scale multiagent systems and described the simulations of
homogeneous agents that provide insight about the interaction
between the strategy used by individual agents and the market
mechanism.

The recent researches have been applied multiagent approach

to the medicine fields [8]. A. Aldea. et. al. [1] proposed a
multiagent architecture to coordinate the Spanish activity in
organ transplants. It is structured in four levels: national, zonal,
regional and hospital level which constructed as agents and
two other agents: Emergency Coordinator and Historical
Agent. When there is a new organ available for transplant in a
hospital addresses in the first place the needs of patients that
have reached an extremely critical stage; if no patients, it tries
to find an appropriate recipient as close as possible to the
donor’s hospital in order to minimize both the financial costs
to transport the organ and length of transport time.
 
 
3. HIERARCHICAL COMPOSITE Fig.2. The general Architecture of Multiagent University.
MULTIAGENT ARCHITECTURE
There are six composite agents: AdminAgent, StuAffairsAgent,
Multiagent system architecture is a typical system architecture DeptAgent, FinanceAgent, LibraryAgent and StudentAgent.
that has intelligent agents as the system components and social AdminAgent includes administrator’s office and admin
communication as the interactions. Hierarchical architecture is department. It performs administrative tasks, staff
a typical control-oriented architecture of multiagent system. It management, initiation for task assignment, etc. AdminAgent
well matches human organization management procedures and is composed of ACo, administrator agent and other staff agents.
provides effective feedback and control ways [6]. In this Most of tokens are created by AdminAgent, for example, task
multiagent architecture, there have many heterogeneous for assigning courses to teachers, informing meeting, etc.
composite agents and one coordinator agent. Coordination in Some databases such as Teachers-Service-Books, StaffProfiles,
hierarchical composite multiagent architecture based on [14] is etc, are located in this site. StuAffairsAgent represents the
shown in Fig 1. Student Affairs department. It is composed of ACo and other
individual agents. Its tasks are student registration,
We create a composite agent team CA = {CA1, CA2, …, CAn} examination, inquiring student information, creating and
and CAi is composed of one Assistant Coordinator agent updating students’ records including attendance. DeptAgent
(ACo) and member agents, CAi = {ACo, A1, A2, …, An}. ACo represents Faculties in the university. It performs teaching,
supervising, scheduling courses or timetabling classes and
planning lectures, etc. DeptAgent is composed of ACo and
teacher agents in faculties. It handles some databases such as
TeacherProfiles, Courses, etc. Teacher agents represent
teachers who are recorded in TeacherProfiles and active as an
agent during the time DeptAgent’s interface is active and they
attend to their departments. LibraryAgent represents the
library system in the university. Its own tasks are member
registration, book reservation, book lending, etc.
FinanceAgent represents Finance department. It provides
preparation of budget, financial statements and reports,
payments and payroll system. StudentAgent is on behalf of all
students in the university. ICo also provide as the coordinator
between different university multiagent systems.
3.2 Structure of Coordinator Agents
Intelligent Coordinator (ICo) works with three components:
ICo, Matching Inference Engine (MIE) and AgentList schema.
ICo is a program implementing token passing algorithm also
called coordinator algorithm that determines where to pass the
token with the help of MIE. The abstract structure of ICo is
shown in Fig 3. The structure of Assistant Coordinator (ACo)
is similar to ICo and it uses another inference engine called
Assistant MIE instead of MIE.  
Fig.3. The abstract structure of Coordinator agent.
MIE is a simple rule based reasoning engine that works with
AgentList database. Several matching functions are performed
by MIE. The detail rule explanations of MIE depend on the
specific application and may be changed according to the
nature of the application. An example title matching in MIE is
shown in Fig 4.
Fig.4. An Example Title Matching.
AgentList schema is a knowledge base that contains the data
of all individual agents in this case study multiagent system.
An agent record includes: AgentName, CompositeAgent,
AgentID, Address, TeamName, Role, Skill, Current Assigned
Task and Task Schedule. AgentID is combined with platform
and localName according to [13] [14]. AgentList is updated
automatically whenever any one agent record is changed.
4. TOKEN-BASED COORDINATION USING
COORDINATOR ALGORITHMS
Coordination in the activities of the agents in a multiagent
system is a key element of Multiagent System organization.
Token-based algorithms have been developed by [2], [16]. A
token encapsulates control and information needed for
message passing, task allocation, and resources sharing and so
on. The screen format of a token used in our approach is
shown in Fig 5. There are five types of tokens: inform token,
task allocation token, resource token, request token and
negotiate token. A token form includes TokenID, Title content,
Detail Description, Sender, Receiver, Replyto, Deadline,
Signature and Reply. TokenID is types of the token. Sender,
Receiver and Replyto include names and addresses which
provide in the JADE [4]. Deadline is needed for task and
resource tokens. Reply field is required for task allocation
token and default is 1. Signature is used to show the
authorized identity. It may be a digital signature.
Fig.5. The screen format of a token.
In this approach, Intelligent Coordinator agent (ICo) provides
coordination and communication among Composite Agents.
Each Composite Agent (CA) has one Assistant Coordinator
agent (ACo) that is responsible for interactions among
individual agents within the same CA. ICo and ACo use token
based coordination with coordinator algorithms shown in Fig
6 and 7. The algorithm gives the token passing decision for all
type of tokens to pass where.
token t = getToken(t);
if ( t.tokenID = 1 ) // Inform token
{ for CAi ∈ CA //composite agents
{ replicate t;
t.Receiver.Add ( CAi ) ; }
Send all replicas t to CAi ∈ CA
}
 if ( t.tokenID = 2 ) // Task allocation token if ( t.tokenID = 4 ) // Request
{ SCA = φ ; // selected CA { if (CheckResourceAvail(t.titleContent)=true )
for all CAi ∈ CA { t.Attachment = Resource OR Data;
SCA = TitleMatching(t.TitleContent) send t to senderAgi ; }
t.Receiver = CAi; else send t to ICo ;
send t to SCA ; }
}
if ( t.tokenID = 3 ) // Resource token if ( t.tokenID = 5 ) // Negotiate
{ if ( CheckRequestedCA ( ) = 1 ) { while ( negotiateResult ≠ OK )
{ t. Receiver = RCAi ; { send t to Agent AND
send t to RCAi ; } Negotiate ( ); }
else if ( CheckRequestedCA ( ) > 1 ) t.Reply = negotiateResult;
if( task . Priority = MAX) send t to ICo;
{ t. Receiver = RCAi ;send t to RCAi ; } }
}
if ( t.tokenID = 4 ) // Request token Fig. 7. Coordinator Algorithm for ACo
{ for
{ if ( SearchResourceAvailable( t.Title ) )
send t to CAi , take Resource AND return; 5. COORDINATION IN PROTOTYPE
} UNIVERSITY ARCHITECTURE
reply t to requested agents;
} We developed a prototype university architecture based on
if ( t.tokenID = 5 ) // Negotiate token Java Agent Development Environment (JADE) using java
{ NRule=TitletoNegotiateRule(t.TitleContent); programming and mySQL database. Currently, we created four
Append NRule to t.DetailDescription; composite agents: AdminAgent, DeptAgent, StuAffairAgent
reply t to t.Sender; LibraryAgent and coordinator agent (AgentICo). Each
} composite agent has one ACo with an interface which allows
adding and deleting individual agents in the same team. We
Fig. 6. Coordinator Algorithm for ICo run our system in five personal computers (Pentium (R), 3.20
GHz and 1 GB memory) with java Sun SDK 1.5, MySQL
token t = getToken(t); Server 5.0 and JADE version 3.4.1. AdminAgent, DeptAgent,
StuAffairAgent, LibraryAgent and AgentICo are run in
if ( t.tokenID = 1 ) // Inform different computers and mySQL server is located in one
computer which run AgentICo. This approach promises to
{ for ∀ Ag ∈ AG ; AGi ∈ CA reach the message or task or resource directly to the receiver
i
send t to Agi ; agent with low cost and little communication.
}
5.1 Inform Token
if ( t.tokenID = 2 ) // Task allocation
{ SAg = φ ; When AgentICo receives an inform token, which title is
“Meeting for all teachers and staffs”, it’s MIE checks the title
for ∀ Ag ∈ AG and sends to all related composite agents (Admin, Dept,
i StuAffair and Library). When ACo in each composite agent
if ( TitleToRoleMatching ( ) = 1 ) receives this inform token, it passes to all related individual
SAg = SAg Υ Agi ; agents in its team. When AgentICo receives an inform token,
if (SAg > required no. of agents) which title is “To attend Seminar”, it’s MIE checks the title
SAg = SelectOptimal( ); and sends to related composite agent (DeptAgent). When ACo
for ∀ Ag i ∈ AG in DeptAgent receives this inform token, it passes to related
Send t to Agi ; teacher agents in its team.
if (Agi reject the task ) Negotiate( );
else Assign Task and Update Workload; 5.2 Task Assignment Token
}
AdminAgent creates a token for course assignment and send
if ( t.tokenID = 3 ) // Resource to ICo. When ICo receives the token, it resets the correct
{ if ( CheckRequestedAgents ( ) = 1 ) receiver agent according to the Matching function in MIE and
send t to Agi; sends to the related DeptAgent. When DeptAgent receives the
else if ( CheckRequestedAgents ( ) > 1 ) task token, its ACo chooses appropriate teachers for each
if( task . Priority = MAX) send t to Agi ; courses based on the preferences and other profile facts of the
else send t to ICo ; teachers. After selecting the appropriate agents, it dynamically
} generates the individual teacher agents and adds their
addresses as the receiver addresses. Then, it sends the task
assignment token to selected teacher agents for assigning the
course. Each receiver agent receives the task assigned token
and reply accept or reject. If any conflicts arise, they are
resolved by sending negotiate tokens each other.
5.3 Requesting the Resource
shows the comparison results about token passing time for
three different models.
Table. 1. Comparison Results for Three Models.

Individual agents may request the resource to perform their

tasks, for example, request a scanner or web cam or books in
the library. When ICo receives a request token, ICo checks the
availability of the resource using MIE which searches the
detail facts of the resource in the related databases and checks
whether the other agents currently used or not. If the resource
is available, the resource is packed into the attachment and the
token is sent to the agent that requested the resource. If the
resource is not available currently, the requested agent is
inserted into the request list.

When ICo receives the resource token, ICo searches the

requested agents. If there are more than one requested agents,
ICo checks the tasks’ priorities that each agent have to do
using this resource and chooses one agent that has maximum
priority of the task. Then ICo sends the resource token to the
selected composite agent and ACo passes the token to the
requested agent. If there is more than one, ACo chooses
appropriate agent based on the task’s priority like ICo.

5.4 Other Features of Prototype System

DeptAgent interface provides course timetable for all classes,
teachers’ information and course information. StuAffairAgent
provides exam scheduling and showing staff’s information.
LibraryAgent handles Booklist and Memberlist database and
perform reserving and lending the books in the library. All
ACo agents stored the sending and receiving messages in the
message queue in the running time. AgentICo handles the
AgentProfiles for selecting the correct receiver agent. Using
this system not only provides coordination in university
subsystems but also all students can see the course information,
timetables, exam information and easy access to the library.
6. EMPRICAL RESULTS
In order to test the coordination and communication between
multiple agents in our prototype university architecture, we
developed three communication models. First is point to point
communication model in which agents are run in different
computers and communicates each other passing token
message to all agents until reaching the correct receiver agent.
Without having coordinator agent, each sender agent cannot
The results show that the proposed approach takes less time
for message passing than the first and second model. There is
a slightly increase in total message passing time in accordance
with the number of agent increases in our approach. So, it
reduces communication time for interaction between multiple
agents and intends to scalability for large agent teams. It also
reduces the total number of messages and has no extra routing
to unrelated agents. All sending messages reach to the
intended agents so coordination is efficient for all types of
tokens.
In our implementation, we tested the performance of
coordinator algorithms for different types of tokens. There is a
linear increase in total number of messages for inform token to
all agents in the team. For task token total number of messages
is somewhat step-up according to the required number of
appropriate agents to allocate the task. The number of
messages for request and resource token is stable for all agents
while the available resource token is sent to high priority
requested agent.
80
Inform
70 Task Assignment
Total Number of Messages

know information about all agents and most of tokens may 60

Request
reach unrelated agents. 50
Resource

40
In Second model, multiple agents that run in different
30
computers, communicate through coordinator agent (ICo).
20
Third model is the proposed approach which uses two
10
coordinator agents (ICo and ACo). Each composite agent runs
0
in one computer. Different composite agents and ICo are run 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
in different computers. Coordinator agents act as the middle Number of composite agents

agents that forward the token messages given by sender agents

to the correct receiver agents. So, sender agent doesn’t need to
know about the information of the receiver agent. Table. 1 Fig.8. The Number of Messages for Different Types of Tokens.
 7. CONCLUSION
We presented a token-based coordination approach for
multiagent university architecture through middle coordinator
agents. In this paper, coordinator algorithms are developed for
reaching the tokens directly to the destination agents and
finishing the tasks in time. Our proposed multiagent system
architecture includes many heterogeneous composite agents
and two coordinator agents: Intelligent Coordinator (ICo) and
Assistant Coordinator (ACo). ICo takes the duty of
coordination and inter agent communication between
composite agents. ACo provides the intra communication
between individual agents within the same composite agent.
Coordinator agents work with coordinator algorithms and
Matching Inference Engine (MIE) to determine where
destination to pass the token. MIE has several rule functions to
work with required databases. The performed experiments
show that the proposed approach is able to reach the token
directly to the correct receiver agent without extra routing to
other agents and reduce message passing time for coordination.
Integrating the proposed coordination with the university
architecture can reduce human involvements in processes and
accelerates university workflows. As a future work an
interesting extension would be to communicate and coordinate
between different multiagent university architectures through
ICo for different types of tokens. Moreover, other activities of
university would make to be automated performing by agents.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Aldea, B. Lopez, A. Moreno, D. Riano and A. Valls,
“A Multi-Agent System for Organ Transplant
Coordination”, Proc. of the Eighth Conference on AI in
Medicine, Europe, 2001.
[2] A. Farinelli, L. Iocchi, D. Nardi and V. A. Ziparo,
"Assignment of Dynamically Perceived Tasks by Token
Passing in Multi-Robot Systems", Proceedings of the
IEEE, Vol. 94, Issue 7, July 2006, pp. 1271-1288.
[3] E. Babkin, H. Adbulrab and T. Babkina, AgentTime: “A
Distributed Multi-agent Software System for University’s
Timetabling”, Emergent Properties in Natural and
Artificial Complex Systems, EPNACS, Germany, 2007.
[4] F. Bellifemine, G. Caire and D. Greenwood, “Developing
Multi-agent Systems with JADE”, Wiley Series in Agent
Technology, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-470-05747-6.
[5] F. Lin, D. H. Norrie, R.A. Flores and R. Kremer,
“Incorporating Conversation Managers into Multi-agent
Systems”, 2000.
[6] H. Tianfield, J. Tian and X. Yao, "On the Architectures
of Complex Multi-Agent Systems", Proceedings of the
Workshop on Knowledge Grid and Grid Intelligence,
IEEE/WIC International Conference on Web Intelligent/
Intelligent Agent Technology, Oct, 2003, pp. 195-206.
[7] J. M. Vidal, “Multiagent Coordination Using a
Distributed Combinatorial Auction”, AAAI Workshop on
Auction Mechanisms for Robot Coordination, 2006.
[8] J. Tian and H. Tianfield, “A Multi-agent Approach to the
Design of an E-medicine System”, Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, Springer Berlin/ Heidelberg, 2003, pp.
85-94.
[9] M. Dastani, F. Arbab and F. de Boer, “Coordination and
Composition in Multi-Agent Systems”, Proc. of the
Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents
and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS’05), 2005.
[10] M. Ham, G. Agha, "Market-based Coordination
Strategies for Large-scale Multi-Agent Systems", System
and Information Sciences Notes, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 126--
131), 2007.
[11] M. Oprea, MAS_UP_UCT: “A Multi-Agent System for
University Course Timetable Scheduling”, International
Journal of Computers, Communications and Control. vol.
2, no. 1. pp. 94-102, 2007.
[12] M-W. Jang, "Efficient Communication and Coordination
For Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems", Ph.D Thesis,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain, 2006.
[13] M. Wooldridge, "An Introduction to Multiagent Systems",
John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
[14] N. Bensaid and Ph. Mathieu, “Integration of hypothetical
reasoning in hierarchical multi-agent architecture”, 1996.
[15] P. Scerri, Y. Xu, J. Polvichai, B. Yu, S. Okamoto, M.
Lewis, and K. Sycara, “Challenges in Building Very
Large Teams”, Lecture Notes in Economics and
Mathematical Systems, Vol. 558, Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 197-228.
[16] P. Scerri, A. Farinelli, S. Okamoto and M. Tambe,
"Token Approach for Role Allocation in Extreme Teams:
analysis and experimental evaluation", 2003.
[17] P. Scerri, J. A. Giampapa, K. P. Sycara.: Techniques and
Directions for Building Very Large Agent Teams.
International Conference on Integration of Knowledge
Intensive Multi-Agent Systems (KIMAS’05). (2005) 79-
84.
[18] Y.Xu, P.Scerri, B.Yu, S. Okamoto, M. Lewis, and K.
Sycara, “An integrated Token-Based Algorithm for
Scalable Coordination”, Proc. of the Fourth International
Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems (AAMAS’05), 2005, pp. 407 – 414.
[19] Y. Xu, P. Scerri, B. Yu, S. Okamoto, M. Lewis, and K.
Sycara.: A POMDP Approach to Token-Based Team
Coordination. Proc. of the Fourth International
Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems (AAMAS’05). (2005)
[20] Y. Xu, P. Scerri, K. Sycara and M. Lewis, “Comparing
Market and Token-Based Coordination”, Proc. of the
Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents
and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS’06), 2006.