3 rd SEAS DTC Technical Conference - Edinburgh 2008 B5 Modelling Cooperative Team Management in a Mine Search Problem Nalan Gulpinar, Fernando Oliveira Operational Research and Management Sciences, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL Abstract In this paper, we are concerned with multi-agent team modelling and decision-making problems arising in mission planning. Team coordination is essential for a good team management to achieve specific objectives. Team structure has an influence on team processes such as the ability to communicate or to coordinate team members' actions properly, and consequently team performance. We consider a cooperative team decision making problem and develop a multi-agent mine search model using a centralised team structure. We present the results of our computational experiments and analyse the performance of the model in terms of an optimal or a feasible plan in a multi-agent system. Keywords: Team management, coordination, multi-agent modelling and decision making under uncertainty, dynamic programming 1. Introduction An agent is defined as an autonomous, problem solving computational entity capable of effective operation in dynamic environment. A team is designed as a multi-agent system. Each agent in a multi- agent system possesses incomplete information for solving a specific problem with limited global knowledge. Therefore, the agents interact with others to gather information and act upon that information to collectively solve the problem. Multi-agent based models have been developed for various civilian and military platforms to perform diverse roles, in particular dangerous activities and operate in different domains; ground, air and sea. These models assume that agents communicate with each other in order to transfer information, or to coordinate activities [1]. Collaborative or behaviour-coordinated activity, involves each agent to work jointly with each other to satisfy a shared goal that often yields more than sum of individual actions [2]. Collaboration must account for not only intentions, abilities and knowledge about action of individual agents but also their coordination in team planning and team acting. This depends on the type of the team structure in terms of centralised, decentralised or distributed control system employed among agents [3]. According to Wooldridge [5], cooperation between agents involves cooperative problem solving as a multi-agent system. Multi-agent planning and decision making in uncertain and dynamic environment play an important role in an autonomous military operation. This process involves formulating actions to be undertaken toward attaining a goal such as allocation of various resources, specification of roles, and prioritization of tasks and so on. In the planning phase a team must define the different tasks and how long each task will take; the resources that can be used in order to do the tasks and goal(s) of the team. In a multi-agent system under uncertainty, all possible situations that could arise such as the position, orientation of the agent, location, and movement, define a state space. Time defines a sequence of