Challenges as diverse as engineering resilient and sustainable smart infrastructure, refactoring healthcare systems to cope with demographic change, and anticipating and mitigating the impacts of climate change, all involve building and analysing complex systems. The AIC research group is at the heart of developing real-world applications through theoretical modelling of the fundamental nature of such systems, their constituent actors and their dynamics.
The group strives to understand and build systems in which autonomous entities (be they biological organisms, humans, software agents or robots) interact with one another.
They are exploring the mechanisms by which cooperation, coordination and negotiation arise within these systems to enable them to predict the aggregate behaviour of these systems when interaction occurs on a large scale.
The AIC research group uses the insights it gains through its innovative research to engineer better systems in which human‐human, human‐agent and agent‐agent interaction occurs and to understand how to design mechanisms of interaction to give the best outcomes, while ensuring robustness and resilience in the face of uncertainty, dynamism and interdependence.
The group’s work draws inspiration and insight from a broad range of related disciplines including biology, economics, psychology, physics, neuroscience and mathematics whose fusion with computer science and electronic engineering provides a vibrant and fundamentally interdisciplinary research culture.
We view agent-based systems as consisting of three main constituent components:
Within this landscape, our particular areas of specialisation focus on