Controller Agents for Constraints Solving (CACS) - implementation and use of a prototype

We aim in this paper to present a model called controller-agents for constraints solving or CACS for short. This model is intended to be used for solving distributed constraint satisfaction problem (DCSP) which is an emerged field from the integration between two paradigms of different nature: multi-agent systems (MAS) that is characterized by the autonomy and the distribution of its entities and the constraint satisfaction problem paradigm (CSP) where all constraints are treated in central manner as a black-box. CACS is based on special kind of agents called controllers. A controller role is to encapsulate and verify some constraints assigned to it. This model allows grouping constraints to form a subset that will be treated together as a local problem inside the controller. Using this model allows also handling non-binary constraints easily and directly so that no translating of constraints into binary ones is needed. Based on CACS, a prototype of DCSP solver is built. This paper presents the implementation outlines of that prototype and its usage methodology. The prototype is built in Java using general interfaces of both MAS and CSP platforms. These interfaces allow users to use the platforms of their choice providing that they implement these interfaces with the chosen platforms.