ARGUS II

News

Final Report

In September 2008, the ARGUS II project published its final report.

Conference 2008

In February 2008, ARGUS II hosted a conference entitled Industrial Applications of Agent-Based Information Fusion. More details can be found at the conference web site.

Engineer Award

In September 2007, the ARGUS II project won an "Engineer and Technology Innovation Award", organised by the magazine The Engineer. The project competed successfully in the category of University - Large Company collaboration. Read the full article on The Engineer's web site, and more details on the projects are available here.

About ARGUS II

The ARGUS II project (completed May 2008) was engaged in the development of distributed and reactive agent-based data and information fusion systems capable of adapting to their environment and making the best use of available information.

The project was a collaborative research programme under the Defence and Aerospace Research Programme (DARP) 2002 initiative sponsored by the DIUS, MoD, EPSRC, QinetiQ, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems. The programme had five partners:

• BAE Systems
• Rolls-Royce
• QinetiQ
• University of Oxford
• University of Southampton

Oxford and Southampton Universities pioneered the integration of agent-based computing technquies with Bayesian inference to tackle problems involving limited resources and real-world uncertainty. These techniques were developed and assessed for exploitation by the ARGUS II industrial partners.

QinetiQ developed advanced data-fusion techniques in Wide Area Surveillance applications for the protection of critical UK infrastructures. Agents ensure that sensors are focused on high-priority objects and object locations, improving the quality of the picture for the human operator.

Rolls-Royce developed a Shop Visit Planner, an agent-based planning and scheduling system for aero engine repair and overhaul. The agents, representing fleet managers and other stakeholderss, adaptively negotiate to schedule engine shop visits.

BAE SYSTEMS developed techniques for Decentralised Air Traffic Control, a revolutionary approach in which airlines are empowered to plan and negotiate their own routes through the airspace. The system is motivated by projections of congested skies, as well as recent technology developments in game theory and inference.