Multi-agent Simulation Design Driven by Real Observations and Clustering Techniques

The multi-agent simulation consists in using a set of interacting agents to reproduce the dynamics and the evolution of the phenomena that we seek to simulate. It is considered now as an alternative to classical simulations based on analytical models. But, its implementation remains difficult, particularly in terms of behaviors extraction and agents modelling. This task is usually performed by the designer who has some expertise and available observation data on the process. In this paper, we propose a novel way to make use of the observations of real world agents to model simulated agents. The modelling is based on clustering techniques. Our approach is illustrated through an example in which the behaviors of agents are extracted as trajectories and destinations from video sequences analysis. This methodology is investigated with the aim to apply it, in particular, in a retail space simulation for the evaluation of marketing strategies. This paper presents experiments of our methodology in the context of a public area modelling.