An Intelligent and Collaborative Multiagent System in a 3D Environment

Abstract

[Abstract] Multiagent systems (MASs) allow facing complex, heterogeneous, distributed problems difficult to solve by only one software agent. The world of video games provides problems and suitable environments for the use of MAS. In the field of games, Unity is one of the most used engines and allows the development of intelligent agents in virtual environments. However, although Unity allows working in multiagent environments, it does not provide functionalities to facilitate the development of MAS. The aim of this work is to create a multiagent system in Unity. For this purpose, a predator–prey problem was designed in which the agents must cooperate to arrest a thief driven by a human player. To solve this cooperative problem, it is required to create the representation of the environment and the agents in 3D; to equip the agents with vision, contact, and sound sensors to perceive the environment; to implement the agents’ behaviors; and, finally but not less important, to build a communication system between agents that allows negotiation, collaboration, and cooperation between them to create a complex, role-based chasing strategy.