PROLOG: A multiagent toolkit for logistics planning in netcentric environments

This paper presents the proactive logistics toolkit (PROLOG), a collaborative agent system and logistics network simulator that allows users to coordinate the transfer of supplies across a dynamically changing logistics network in a fully distributed, netcentric way. A collection of cognitive agents and asset classes models the logistics network: clients, their supply inventories, vehicles, and transportation links. Event processing plugins within each agent allow the scripting of events (such as a road closing or warehouse fire) that can dynamically change the state of the logistics network, both in terms of vehicle routing and in terms of what supplies are present in which sections of the network. Ant-based routing algorithms are layered on top of the simulator, giving clients regular, automatically updated information concerning which network clients can best fill requests for a given commodity in the shortest time.